Synopses & Reviews
In 1955, shortly after Emmett Till was murdered by white supremacists in Mississippi, his grieving mother distributed to the press a gruesome photograph of his mutilated corpse. Asked why she would do this, she explained that by witnessing with their own eyes the brutality of segregation and racism, Americans would be more likely to support the cause of racial justice. Let the world see what Ive seen,” was her reply. The publication of the photograph inspired a generation of activists to join the civil rights movement.
Despite this extraordinary episode, the story of visual cultures role in the modern civil rights movement is rarely included in its history. This is the first comprehensive examination of the ways images mattered in the struggle, and it investigates a broad range of media including photography, television, film, magazines, newspapers, and advertising.
These images were ever present and diverse: the startling footage of southern white aggression and black suffering that appeared night after night on television news programs; the photographs of black achievers and martyrs in Negro periodicals; the humble snapshot, no less powerful in its ability to edify and motivate. In each case, the war against racism was waged through picturesmillions of points of light, millions of potent weapons that forever changed a nation. Through vivid storytelling and incisive analysis, this powerful book allows us to see and understand the crucial role that visual culture played in forever changing a nation.
Review
“Even ‘unforgettable images such as those contained in this project can be forgotten if they are not part of a public and highly visible record. With this tremendously important book, Maurice Berger has ensured that these powerful, affirming, and harrowing images will remain central to the story of this countrys furious and joyful struggle for civil rights.”Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Harvard University
-- Robert Leiter - The Jewish Exponent
Review
"Stunning both visually and interpretively, this marvelous book is by turns chilling and inspiring, poignant and gritty. The images it chooses and juxtaposes will introduce young people to worlds of struggle too little recalled and remind us all of the stakes involved in images of race and freedom."David Roediger, author of How Race Survived U.S. History: From Settlement and Slavery to the Obama Phenomenon -- Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Review
“In 1955, the photograph of Emmett Tills mutilated body was for many African-Americans the visual equivalent of a knock-out punch. . . . That single image played a powerful role in building the civil rights movement, we learn in Maurice Bergers
For All the World to See.”Boston Globe
-- David Roediger
Review
“
For All the World to See. . . reminds us though text and images just how powerfully photography affected the course of a major social movement that changed the history and the fabric of American life, all for the better.”--Robert Leiter,
Jewish Exponent
-- Boston Globe
Review
"[An] attractive and compellingly written new work."--Tracy E. KMyer, The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society -- Robert Leiter - Jewish Exponent
Review
Winner in Photography/ArtCategory, 2011 New England Book Festival New England Book Festival
Review
Runner-up for the 2011-2012 Los Angeles Book Festival in the Photography/Art category, sponsored by JM Northern Media LLC
Review
"This book will be of great interest to readers interested in the history of photography. An essential title for academic and public libraries supporting photography collections."and#8212;Valerie Nye, Library Journal
Review
"[The catalogue] should be considered indispensable to a serious photography book library."and#8212;Studio International
Review
Finalist for the 2012 ForeWord Book of the Year Award in the Photography category (winners will be announced 23 June) Studio International
Review
Runner up for the 2012 San Francisco Book Festival award for Photography and Art. ForeWord Magazine - Book of the Year Finalist
Review
and#160;"
The Radical Camera. . . catalogue surveys and illuminates the many personalities and their politics that formulated the Photo League's tenants and ensuing oeuvre throughoutand#160; the tumults of their times"and#8212;
BookslutReview
Winner of the 2011 New England Book Festival in the Photography/Art category. This award is given by the JM Northern Media family of festivals, and sponsored by the Larimar St. Croix Writers Colony, eDivvy, Shophanista and Westside Websites
Review
Won Honorable Mention for the 2012 Exhibition Catalogue Award given by the Dedalus Foundation
Review
Runner-up for the 2011-2012 Los Angeles Book Festival in the Photography/Art category, sponsored by JM Northern Media LLC Exhibition Catalogue Award Honorable Mention - Dedalus Foundation
Review
Bronze Medaland#160;for the 2012 ForeWord Book of the Year Award in the Photography category
Review
Selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2012 for Photography within the Humanities category. Photography/Art Award Runner-up - Los Angeles Book Festival
Review
andldquo;Jon Lewisandrsquo;s magnificent photographs of the farmworker revolution in California evoke comparisons with the work of Dorothea Lange. They bend time past all forgetting to an era of struggle that stands on a par with Selma and Freedom Summerandmdash;the bitter fight to dignify Mexican and Filipino labor in the fields. Richard Street, who brought Lewis and his archive back into the light, provides a piercing account that honors both the brilliance of this photographer and the memory of a singular time and place.andrdquo;andmdash;Richard A. Walker, professor of geography at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of
The Conquest of Bread: 150 Years of California AgribusinessReview
andldquo;With characteristic erudition, historian Richard Steven Street brings to life the incredible work of Jon Lewis, one of the foremost labor and civil rights photographers of the twentieth century. This book simultaneously captures agricultural Californiaandrsquo;s most pressing political struggles and the vision of a major, if unrecognized, artist.andrdquo;andmdash;Stephen Pitti, professor of history at Yale University and author of
The Devil in Silicon Valley: Northern California, Race, and Mexican AmericansSynopsis
An in-depth look at the influential Photo League, whose blend of aesthetics and social activism advanced modern photography
Artists in the Photo League, active from 1936 to 1951, were known for capturing sharply revealing, compelling moments from everyday life. Their focus centered on New York City and its vibrant streets--a newsboy at work, a brass band on a bustling corner, a crowded beach at Coney Island. Though beautiful, the images harbor strong social commentary on issues of class, child labor, and opportunity. The Radical Camera explores the fascinating blend of aesthetics and social activism at the heart of the Photo League, tracing the group's left-leaning roots and idealism to the worker-photography movement in Europe. Influenced by mentors Lewis Hine, Berenice Abbott, and Paul Strand, artists in the Photo League worked within a unique complex comprising a school, a darkroom, a gallery, and a salon, in which photography was discussed as both a means for social change and an art form. The influence of the Photo League artists on modern photography was enormous, ushering in the New York School.
Presenting 150 works of the members of the Photo League alongside complementary essays that offer new interpretations of the League's work, ideas, and pedagogy, this beautifully illustrated book features artists including Margaret Bourke-White, Sid Grossman, Morris Engel, Lisette Model, Ruth Orkin, Walter Rosenblum, Aaron Siskind, W. Eugene Smith, and Weegee, among many others.
Synopsis
This lavishly illustrated book is the first to examine the significant contributions of John and Dominique de Menil to art, architecture, film, and the civil and human rights movements. The de Menils, who moved to Houston from France in 1941, amassed one of the world's great private art collections and became passionately involved in the cause of human rights.
The volume includes a discussion of the building of the de Menils' art collection; their patronage of modern architecture in Houston; their embrace of modernism; their leadership in Houston's civil rights movement and in human rights projects worldwide; their commissioning of works of art; their involvement in early film education and documentary filmmaking; and their establishment of the Rothko Chapel, the Menil Collection, the Cy Twombly Gallery, the Dan Flavin Installation, and the Byzantine Fresco Chapel Museum. Vintage photographs, including those taken by Henri Cartier Bresson and Eve Arnold, previously unpublished correspondence with artists, and an illustrated chronology all add to this textured tribute to the de Menils' extraordinary achievements.
Synopsis
An in-depth look at the influential Photo League, whose blend of aesthetics and social activism advanced modern photography
Synopsis
Artists in the Photo League, active from 1936 to 1951, were known for capturing sharply revealing, compelling moments from everyday life. Their focus centered on New York City and its vibrant streetsand#8212;a newsboy at work, a brass band on a bustling corner, a crowded beach at Coney Island. Though beautiful, the images harbor strong social commentary on issues of class, child labor, and opportunity.
The Radical Camera explores the fascinating blend of aesthetics and social activism at the heart of the Photo League, tracing the group's left-leaning roots and idealism to the worker-photography movement in Europe. Influenced by mentors Lewis Hine, Berenice Abbott, and Paul Strand, artists in the Photo League worked within a unique complex comprising a school, a darkroom, a gallery, and a salon, in which photography was discussed as both a means for social change and an art form. The influence of the Photo League artists on modern photography was enormous, ushering in the New York School.and#160;
Presenting 150 works of the members of the Photo League alongside complementary essays that offer new interpretations of the League's work, ideas, and pedagogy, this beautifully illustrated book features artists including Margaret Bourke-White, Sid Grossman, Morris Engel, Lisette Model, Ruth Orkin, Walter Rosenblum, Aaron Siskind, W. Eugene Smith, and Weegee, among many others.
Synopsis
Before the film, Cand#233;sar Chavez, Chavez'sand#160;life was depicted in photographsand#160;by his confidant, Jon Lewis.
In the winter of 1966, twenty-eight-year-old ex-marineand#160;Jon Lewis visited Delano, California, theand#160;center of the California grape strike. He thought he might stay awhile, then resume studying photography at San Francisco State University. He stayed for two years, becoming the United Farm Workers Unionand#8217;s semiofficial photographer and a close confidant of farmworker leader Cand#233;sar Chand#225;vez.
Surviving on a picketand#8217;s wage of five dollars a week, Lewis photographed twenty-four hours a day and created an insiderand#8217;s view of the historic and sometimes violent confrontations, mass marches, fasts, picket lines, and boycotts that forced the table-grape industry to sign the first contracts with a farm workers union. Though some of his images were published contemporaneously, most remained unseen. Historian and photographer Richard Steven Street rescues Lewis from obscurity, allowing us for the first time to see a pivotal moment in civil rights history through the lens of a passionate photographer.
A masterpiece of social documentary, this work is at once the biography of a photographer, an exposand#233; of poverty and injustice, and a celebration of the human spirit.
About the Author
Maurice Berger is Senior Research Scholar at the Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and Senior Fellow at the Vera List Center for Art and Politics of The New School. He is the author of the critically acclaimed White Lies: Race and the Myths of Whiteness, which was named as a finalist for the 2000 Horace Mann Bond Book Award.