The Way We Were: New England Then, New England Now

by Daniel Okrent

Book Overview

Way We Were, The: New England Then, New England Now, by Okrent, Daniel This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1555843581
• ISBN13: 9781555843588
• Release Date: January 1989
• Publisher: Grove Weidenfeld
• Length: 179 Pages
• Weight: 0.20 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Yesterday comes alive

How refreshing to find a book that ticks all the right boxes: first-class content rich photos; captions that tell you more than what is obviously visible in the photo; simple yet elegant layout; good paper and printing. The reason for these photos is rather intriguing. They were taken by eight excellent photojournalists: Esther Bubley, Charlotte Brooks; Arnold eagle; Sol Libsohn; Gordon Parks; John Vachon; Todd Webb and Diane Witlin, working for Roy Stryker who had been hired by Standard Oil New Jersey (now Exxon Mobil) to improve their image. Esso had been under attack for suspected complicity with the Nazis during the war years. The photographers had a wide mandate to capture everyday life and oil across the Nation with or without an Esso sign in the frame. It seems that New England, from 1944 to 1953, got more coverage than the rest of the country and it shows. Everything is here: home life; farming; fishing; in the classroom; factories, recreation, small town life and landscapes. I thought one of the lovely things about the book are photos that show people, not posed looking at the camera but doing things, either individually or in groups, a doctor with a patient, a family at mealtime, children in a classroom or fishermen handling their catch. It's as if the camera wasn't there and we looking in and this gives the photos credibility and an honesty not normally seen in documentary work. Another editorial item worth mentioning are the photo captions. In this book they work. People are named and what they are doing explained, whether they are on the farm or in a factory, places have their background revealed, shops and street scenes are placed in the context of the community. This is Roy Stryker getting the best from his staff photographers: they not only took great images but collected background information to make their work come alive. 'The way we were' delivers because Daniel Okrent has created the perfect look back. ***SEE SOME INSIDE PAGES by clicking 'customer images' under the cover.