« Extended! | Main | A couple more clips »
August 18, 2008
Who We Were: A Snapshot History of America
It's been more than two years since Mike Williams and Rich Cahan of City Files Press initially approached me with the idea of doing a snapshot book so I'm very pleased to announce that the book is finally done and available for pre-order now (click here for a preview and ordering details). It goes to press early next week and barring any unforeseen problems we should have them in hand on August 15th and we'll begin shipping the next day.
The book truly was a collaborative effort with Mike and Rich contributing every bit as much (and probably more) to the final product as me. Only about half the photos come from my collection and of those many haven't been posted to Square America so most of the book will be new to everyone. What really separates this book from Square America (and just about every snapshot book that's been done) is the amount of effort we put in to research every photo in order to place it in it's proper historical context.
When the book opens in 1888, the population of the United States was approximately 62 million people spread out across 39 states and 7 territories. Just 28 cities have a population of greater than 100,000 and 2/3s of the population live in rural areas. The Indian wars largely over, the U.S. is well on its way towards claiming the last of the Native American’s land and fixing the boundaries of the 48 states as we now know them. While the U.S. economy is the most productive in the world, we’re also less than 20 years removed from the completion of the transcontinental railway and the gas-powered automobile has yet to introduced.
By the close of the book in April of 1972 the population has more than tripled to approximately 210 million, nearly 75% living in urban areas. The U.S. leads the world economically, diplomatically, and militarily but we’re still embroiled in Vietnam and the Watergate break-in is less than two months away.
In the intervening years every story we’ve told ourselves about America, the cradle of Democracy, the land of freedom and opportunity, has been proven both true and false. In this book we’ve tried to chart some of that trajectory--thematically as much as chronologically-- as it has played out in the lives of ordinary people. In snapshots we see history as it was experienced at ground level. During WWII, for instance, just over 10% of the population served in the military, for the other 90% the ordinary life of work and family continued on. The grand events that fill history books usually appear in snapshots obliquely, or often not at all. What we do see is how those events and the relentless forward momentum of technological change and even fashion gradually change those most ordinary aspects of life-- work, family, relationships-- that seem most permanent.
Of course the book does cover the big historical events but hopefully in a unique way. This is one of the many photos in the WWII chapter:
With pilots in short supply during the war the "Women Flyers of America" ferried planes from the assembly lines to Air Force bases both in the U.S. and overseas.
Here's a photo taken by a soldier in Korea:
The back reads "This is one of the mosquitos here. That is my hand. You can see how big they are."
Here's what the very fine writer Luc Sante said about the book:
Who We Were is the most intimate kind of history--the past with all
the laughs and chills and hesitations left in, and all the unresolved
contradictions as well. It's a lovely collection of amateur
photographs, some of them truly inadvertent in their glory, some
potential candidates for high-art stature if they were matted and
framed. Overall it's as close to a true self-portrait of the American
people as you're likely to find between covers.
The fantastic photographer Alec Soth had this to say:
With the medium of photography, anyone can make a masterpiece.
The cell-phone snapshooter is just as likely of capturing the next iconic i
mage as the celebrated photojournalist. The higher challenge, the art – if
you will, is assembling a collection of great images. With Who We Were:
A Snapshot History of America, Richard Cahan, Michael Williams, and
Nicholas Osborn have done just that. From hundred of brilliant fragments,
they’ve pieced together a breathtaking view of the puzzle of America.
(By the way Sante's translation of Felix Feneon's Novels in Three Lines is one the best and strangest books I've come across in years. And Soth's Sleeping By The Mississippi, one of the finest photo books of the last 50 years, has just been reprinted and if you don't already have it you better grab yourself a copy. A big thank you to both of them for taking the time to look at the book and saying such nice things!)
In 1937 Walker Evans wrote, “And then one thinks of the run of the social mill: these anonymous people who come and go in the cities and on the land. It is on what they look like now, what is in their faces and in the windows and the streets beside and around them, what they are wearing and what they are riding in and how they are gesturing, that we need to concentrate, consciously, with the camera.” Of course, many of those anonymous people had cameras of their own and used them to take photos of themselves and of each other, of the places they lived and worked and visited. And this, I think, is the great legacy of the snapshot and what I hope the book captures; this visual diary in photographs both mundane and extraordinary, the annals of everyday life.
(thanks to Reservatory for reminding me of the Walker Evans quote.)
Posted by nick at August 18, 2008 10:56 AM
Comments
Fine post.
Posted by: anyjazz at August 19, 2008 12:07 PM