Seeing America: Women Photographers between the Wars

Seeing America explores the camera work of five women who directed their visions toward influencing social policy and cultural theory. Taken together, they visually articulated the essential ideas occupying the American consciousness in the years between the world wars. Melissa McEuen examines the work of Doris Ulmann, who made portraits of celebrated artists in urban areas and lesser-known craftspeople in rural places; Dorothea Lange, who magnified human dignity in the midst of poverty and unemployment; Marion Post Wolcott, a steadfast believer in collective strength as the antidote to social ills and the best defense against future challenges; Margaret Bourke-White, who applied avant-garde advertising techniques in her exploration of the human condition; and Berenice Abbott, a devoted observer of the continuous motion and chaotic energy that characterized the modern cityscape. Combining feminist biography with analysis of visual texts, McEuen considers the various prisms though which each woman saw and revealed America. Their documentary photographs were the result of personal visions that had been formed by experiences and emotions as well as by careful calculations and technological processes. These photographers captured the astounding variety of occupations, values, and leisure activities that shaped the nation, and their photographs illuminate the intricate workings of American culture in the 1920s and 1930s. Winner of the 1999 Emily Toth Award for the best feminist study of popular culture given by the Women’s Caucus of the Popular Culture Association Melissa McEuen is an assistant professor of history at Transylvania University. Each short biographical study of these artists and their professional habits charts the evolution of socially conscious photography. —Arkansas Review A treasury of information and analysis. . . . A rich resource for anyone interested in the history of photography, women\u27s history, and American history in general. —Bloomsbury Review The quality in this study rests in McEuen’s ability to synthesize individual creativity with a description of the period, and how these women’s photography played a role in so many aspects of it. —Choice A valiant, well-researched effort to bridge the history of visual culture with American social and political history. —Journal of American History Gives credit to the women who had the unique ability to capture the unfailing human spirit in their images. —Kentucky Monthly Profiles five female photographers, their work, their motivations and their reflection of America. —Lexington Herald-Leader The best books always leave their audience wanting more. That is certainly true of this gem of a work. —Library Journal (starred review) Succeeds in conveying to the reader the remarkable intellectual curiosity and wherewithal of these women, as evidenced by the vibrancy and variety of the their work. —Magill Book Reviews McEuen has contributed an impressively-researched, well-written, and engaging volume, rich in contextual details and appealing to specialists and general readers alike. —NWSA Journal Illuminates both the work and the personalities of the artists—as well as the difficulties of being a woman photographer at the time. —Ohioana Quarterly Opens a window on American culture between the world wars. —Publishers Weekly McEuen looks beyond the image, in this case photographs, to understand who fashioned the image and why. —Register of the Kentucky Historical Societyhttps://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_womens_studies/1007/thumbnail.jp

Changing Eyes: American Culture and the Photographic Image, 1918-1941.

From 1918 to 1941, fast-paced changes and far-reaching crises occurred in all realms of American life--social, economic, political, cultural, and intellectual. Evidence of the culture\u27s preoccupations showed up not only in written, but also in visual sources. Photographs helped to reveal the values of American culture, and did so with increasing frequency as the photographic process was further improved. Each visual image bore the marks of its culture, yet none provided a completely objective look at reality. For every picture was the product of the personality standing behind the camera. This study examines both the lives and the photographs of five women who took pictures in the 1920s and 1930s. These five--Doris Ulmann, Dorothea Lange, Margaret Bourke-White, Berenice Abbott, and Marion Post Wolcott--were selected for several reasons: each made considerable contributions to photography\u27s development, in a historical sense; each produced perceptive works reflecting American thought and life in these decades; and each displayed a unique style, indicative of type and amount of artistic training, political background, varying financial constraints, and sources of support, some private and some public. Together, the five produced a corps of visual images that epitomized the nature of American culture and character in two decades marked by tremendous changes in all realms. Their work covers as broad a spectrum in tastes, methods, and visions, as any in the history of photography. That these woman worked during such a critical time in the nation\u27s history simply augments their personal achievements. In using photographs as historical evidence, I have examined photographic series of particular subjects, rather than isolated images. I have discussed various sources of funding photographers relied upon, and I have analyzed the extent to which these sources influenced the kinds of photographs that resulted. The main line of argument throughout the study deals with how methods and directions of photography itself changed in these two decades; how these five women I have studied served as both vehicles for, and creators of, change; and how Americans, both collectively, and as individuals, were portrayed through the medium of photography