Kodachrome: The American Invention of Our World, 1939-1959

by Els Rijper (Editor), Delano Greenidge Editions (Editor)

A popular history of 20th-century visual culture, The American Invention of Our World 1939-1959 shows how the American point of view in full-color became an international standard. The book opens with a selection of rarely reproduced color images from the Depression through the early days of World War II. The bright, cosmopolitan atmosphere of the 1939 World’s Fair in New York contrasts with a foreboding glimpse of Hitler’s pre-war Berlin. Early photographs of the devastation in Warsaw and London are presented together with pictures of sharecroppers and homesteaders in the United States. Fashion plates and candid portraits of Satchmo, Frida Kahlo and Helena Rubenstein share the pages that follow with coverage of the War through the liberation of Buchenwald, the conference at Yalta, and the wreckage of Berlin and Hiroshima. The book continues through the late 40s and into the 50s with a wide-ranging assortment of images from the worlds of fashion, politics, sports, and popular culture. Among the personalities, places, and events pictured are Marilyn Monroe, Joe Di Maggio, Gene Autry, Elvis, Pablo Picasso, Eero Saarinen’s studio, shop windows in Manhattan, the Korean War, and the A-bomb tests at the Marshall Islands and Bikini Atoll.

Genres: Photography, Nonfiction

230 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2002

Reviews

[Michael Dashkin · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I heard that Kodak was discontinuing Kodachrome, I started looking around for books about the legendary color film.

The title is kind of misleading: Although the word "Kodachrome" appears, the book actually includes photos made with other color processes, not just Kodachrome. And none of the photos is identified by process, so you don't know which are Kodachrome and which are other films or processes.

Also, the title refers to "American invention," implying that there will be some sort of comparison with other color processes (presumably not American), but this doesn't materialize.

There's some interesting discussion in the brief introductory essay about color replacing black & white as a rendering of reality closer to our own perception, but no discussion of how Kodachrome -- with it's unique look -- was itself an interpretation of reality.

Lastly, the photos are limited to public relations work, some advertising, a bit of photojournalism and some Federal government projects such as the FSA, but none of the amateur, snapshot Kodachrome that are probably the best-loved and most prolific Kodachrome images.

The images themselves are nicely-reproduced here. If you're simply looking for color advertising/editorial images from about 1940-1960, this will supply them; it just won't offer much information specifically about the Kodachrome process.

[Barry Harding · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lot's of color pics of WWII.