Allen Cohen and Ronald L. Filippelli, Times Of Sorrow And Hope. State College, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003. Photos, 265 pp., $45.00.
The Great Depression of the late 1920s and the decade of the 1930s was one of the most profoundly significant eras in the history of the United States. Not since the Civil War had the nation's foundation been so threatened by economic, cultural, and political instability. In 1935 the Farm Security Administration (FSA), an agency of the New Deal, gathered a group of photographers to document life in America. The dozen or so photographers fanned out across the country, producing an archive of images showing the life of the citizenry during those difficult times, a chronicle of American life that remains unrivaled to this day. This book is an assembly of the images that were created in Pennsylvania.
This wonderful book is beautifully produced on quality paper stock. The printing captures the broad range of tones in black and white photography with an appealing fidelity. The fine, semi-matte surface of the book's pages allows for the inks to render the images with great accuracy. This can be seen mostly in the success of rendering the shadow details.
The layout and design of the book are well done. The photographs are presented in a consistent size from page to page with plenty of white space around them to set them off, as if they were framed for an exhibit.
They are preceded by a well-written foreword by Miles Orvell that places the project in the context of its moment in history, as well as giving a perspective on documentary photography as a whole. He gives credit to the FSA photographers for paving the way for the success of the weekly magazines, such as Life and Look, and the elevation of this genre of photography to an art form as seen in Edward Steichen's "Family of Man" exhibit at the New York Museum of Modern Art in 1955.
The authors, Allen Cohen and Ronald Filippelli, continue the text with a scholarly essay on the Depression and its effects, along with the governmental and political responses in Pennsylvania. They go on to describe the FSA Photographic project in general and how it was specifically implemented in the state. The photography section is organized into themes representing: Children, Town and City, At Home, At Leisure, and eight other categories. These groupings serve to give structure to the archive of 150 images, breaking the pictures into manageable, cohesive segments.
Arthur P. Miller, Jr., and Marjorie L. Miller, Guide to the Homes of Famous Pennsylvanians: Houses, Museums, and Landmarks. Mechanicsburg PA: Stackpole Books, 2003. Photos, 224pp., $18.95.