Publisher's Synopsis
Seeing America explores the camera work of five women who directed their visions toward influencing social policy and cultural theory. Doris Ulmann made portraits of celebrated artists in urban areas and lesser-known craftspeople in rural places; Dorothea Lange magnified human dignity in the midst of poverty and unemployment; Marion Post Wolcott believed steadfastly in collective strength as the antidote to social ills and the best defense against future challenges; Margaret Bourke-White applied avant-garde advertising techniques in her exploration of the human condition; and Berenice Abbott captured the continuous motion and chaotic energy that characterized the modern cityscape. Combining feminist biography with analysis of visual texts, Melissa McEuen considers the various prisms though which each woman saw and revealed the intricate workings of American culture in the 1920s and 1930s.
