"The best books always leave their audience wanting more. That is certainly true of this gem of a work."
--Library Journal (starred review)
"Opens a window on American culture between the world wars."
--Publishers Weekly
"Gives credit to the women who had the unique ability to capture the unfailing human spirit in their images."
--Kentucky Monthly
Publisher Web Site, March, 2005
Summary
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.
Melissa A. McEuen is associate professor of history at Transylvania University.