Though it is mostly invisible to us, we need air. (Please remember to breathe as you read this.) Necessary to life, hard to grasp, air became a powerful metaphor and an actual source of power for life in the new world. Europeans used the wind to get to America, then worried that its air was bad for them (mal-aria). Hurricanes and other tempests of wind threatened lives and properties. Indian, European, and African peoples of the Americas played and sang musical airs, even operatic arias. Colonists made money from tobacco smoke and from wind-powered sugar-mills. In America, squirrels flew and the Virgin (of Guadalupe) hovered in midair. Soaring eagles represented new American nations. And new world aerial phenomena shaped new conceptions of climate that continue to inform debates about life on Earth today.

In association with the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society, the John Carter Brown Library is pleased to present the second of four special exhibitions on the classical four elements: earth, air, fire, and water. Under the direction of guest curator Joyce E. Chaplin (James Duncan Phillips Professor of Early American History, Harvard University), Air America showcases texts, maps, and illustrations from the Library’s collections that reveal the multiple and resonant meanings of air to the history of the Americas. Along with the other three exhibits, Air America emphasizes the significance of the natural world to the New World—and, indeed, all of the world.