P.A. Letourneau was very busy in the 1990s serving as the editor of numerous books in the Iconografix Photo Archive series. This volume offers 122 black and white photographs from an album compiled by the Holt Manufacturing Co. and housed in the Shields Library at the University of California, Davis, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, as well as eight photographs from the Caterpillar Corporate Archives. The introduction includes a page and a half text overview and six photographs of Benjamin Holt, co-founder of the Holt Manufacturing Co. and early views of the Holt factory in Stockton, California. The Steam Tractors section features 48 photographs with four enlarged to cover two pages. The Gasoline Tractors section offers 69 photos, also including four shown on two pages. As is the case with the earlier Photo Archive books, the photos include brief captions typically less than 30 words. As Letourneau explained, “Virtually no information regarding the machines accompanied the photographs.” The book’s goal is not to present a detailed history, but to offer photographs. Despite this significant limitation, the photographs offer a rich array of very interesting early track-based tractors at work on a variety of often unique agricultural and industrial tasks.

Book Review by Robert Gabrick