Contains photographs by Paul Carter, John Collier, Jr., Jack Delano, Walker Evans, Theo Jung, Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, Carl Mydans, Arthur Rothstein, Ben Shahn, John Vachon, and Marion Post Wolcott.
Contents:
Vantage point : "The bitter years" reconsidered / Jean Back -- Of power and politics : Steichen at MOMA / Ariane Pollet -- Testimony or instrument of propaganda : what is the role of photography? / Gabriel Bauret -- "A very living document of our age": constructing and deconstructing the FSA archive -- The château d'eau : a water tower as cultural reservoir / Antoinette Lorang -- "The Bitter Years" : The plates
Summary:
"'The Bitter Years' was a seminal exhibition curated by Edward Steichen in 1962 at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. The show featured 208 images by photographers who worked under the aegis of the U.S. Farm Security Administration (FSA) in 1935-41, as part of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal ... No proper catalogue was produced of the exhibition in 1962 so this book provides a unique opportunity to see all the photographs in a structure and sequence that reflected those devised by Steichen for the original show..." --From book jacket.
