Currier & Ives

edited by John Lowell Pratt. Hammond, $14.95. By hanging this volume of reproductions on the phrase “chronicles of America,” Mr. Pratt has committed himself to an inordinate number of dreary battle scenes and starchy portraits. The scheme has also lured most of the contributors (H. J. Swinney and Red Smith are the pleasant exceptions) into writing overfamiliar national history when attention to the methods and staff of Currier & Ives would have been more news to more readers.