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On a visit to Buffalo, New York, the French poet Dominique Fourcade was awed by the huge concrete grain elevators that line the city s river and lakefront. Turning to his guide, the poet Susan Howe, he exclaimed, The American Chartres! Taking Fourcade s exclamation as its title, Bruce Jackson s American Chartres documents Buffalo s surviving grain elevators, capturing these monumental buildings in all seasons and in various light; from the Buffalo River, the Ship Canal, and Lake Erie; from inside and from the top floors and roofs; in detail and in toto. Invented in Buffalo by Robert Dunbar and Joseph Dart, the city s first grain elevator went operational in 1843. By the mid-1850s, Buffalo was the world s largest grain port, and would remain so well into the twentieth century.