Description
Book SynopsisOffering analysis of the sociology of photography's art world and its galleries and exhibitions, this book demonstrates the importance of the venues created by impresarios and others that proved essential to photography's extraordinary dissemination.
Trade Review"A brilliant sociological mapping of its subject that is nuanced, far-reaching and exhaustively researched"--
The Art Book"
A Staggering Revolution will create a renaissance in how scholars and students think about how photography arose as a democratic art form. Raeburn's insights regarding photography's revolution in the 1930s can also shed light on the current revolution in digital media."--
H-Net Reviews "Raeburn skillfully treats the role of the FSA photography project in the contexts of art. In the process he offers the most nuanced, perceptive discussion of the much-misunderstood role of FSA project chief Roy Emerson Stryker that I have ever read. Even for those of us well-schooled in the history and practices of the FSA, these chapters offer something new and valuable. . . . Raeburn challenges readers to look beyond received wisdom about the visual culture of the 1930s and explore it anew for themselves."--
American Historical Review"A sweeping cultural history of 1930s photography and a passionate argument that photographs are powerful pieces of historical evidence and should not be treated as merely illustrations."--
Winterthur Portfolio"
A Staggering Revolution is a major work of synthesis and original scholarship, a close-textured history of photography in the Thirties that will change our way of thinking about its subject and about Thirties culture generally."--Miles Orvell, author of
The Real Thing: Imitation and Authenticity in American Culture and of American Photography"A landmark revision of our thinking about American photography in the 1930s. A large, meticulous, and passionate book."--William Stott, author of
Documentary Expression and Thirties America and
Walker Evans: Photographs from the 'Let Us Now Praise Famous Men' Project"Tells an extraordinary story of the 'rebirth,' the flowering, and the cultural legitimation of photography in America, both as art and 'popular preoccupation,' in the 1930s. . . . A many-layered narrative, beautifully balanced and indescribably rich."--Alan Trachtenberg, Neil Gray Professor Emeritus of English and American Studies, Yale University
Table of ContentsPreface ix
Acknowledgments xv
A Calendar of Thirties Photography xvii
1. The Rebirth of Photography in the Thirties 1
2. Disestablishing Stieglitz 19
3. Group f.64 and the Problem of California Photography 30
4. An Eastern Beachhead 48
5. Edward Steichen and Celebrity Photography 61
6. MoMA's "Big Top" Show 80
7. Camera Periodicals and the Popular Audience 93
8. Culture Morphology in Berenice Abbott's New York 114
9. Farm Security Administration Photography and the Dilemmas of Art 143
10. Farm Security Administration Photography in the Aura of Art 162
11. The Nation's Newsstands 194
12. The Photo League, Lewis Hine, and the Harlem Document 219
13. Seeing California with Edward Weston 246
14. Photography at High Tide 276
Afterword: "The Cultural Establishment of Photography" 293
Notes 303
Index 361
Photographs follow page 302
