This anthology brings together 20 works of scholarship on the history of the visual arts in the United States from the colonial period to 1945. The selected essays - all written within the last two decades - reflect the interdisciplinary character of art historiography in America and the variety of approaches that contribute to the dynamism in the field. The authors take up diverse subjects - from colonial portraits to 19th-century sculptures of women to photographic images of New York - and invite those with a general knowledge of the history of American art to think more deeply about art and culture.