A Book Review from Delaney Library

The Delaney Library offers a selection of books that aid professionals, staff, and researchers in their work with the various materials offered in our archival collections, such as photographs. This book review by one of our library student worker covers one such book:

Alan Trachtenberg has put together an impressive book that interprets American life through photography. Reading American Photographs includes works from acclaimed photographers such as Mathew Brady, Timothy O’Sullivan, and Walker Evans. The photographs represented are from as far back as the 1800s and cover 100 years of American history, including two depressions. Trachtenberg does a wonderful job explaining the photographs; Reading American Photographs is a great read and visually interesting. The history of America can be viewed from the lenses of these luminary men, and the photographs are very impactful. The book quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson in Chapter 1 who says most graciously, “Other men are lenses through which we read our own minds.”