Photography and Politics in America

In the early and most intense years of the Cold War, social documentary photographers often found themselves in ideological turmoil or in trouble with the government. In this volume, Lili Corbus Bezner argues that many of the photographers of this period retreated from overt political content. Although many critics defended the trend, arguing that truly visionary art transcended politics, Bezner notes that the Cold War era effectively silenced some of the most socially engaged photographers in American society. Bezner aims to bring back many of those silenced voices and offers a detailed analysis of social documentary photography from the Depression through the early Cold War years. She traces the political and artistic struggles of socially concerned photographers in interviews with the artists, and explores the history of controversial, black-listed Photo League and member Sid Grossman. In addition she recalls some important moments in American photographic history of the 1950s, such as the blockbuster exhibition "The Family of Man" or Robert Frank's influential book "The Americans".