John Vachon’s America: Photographs and Letters from the Depression to World War II

by John Vachon, Miles Orvell (Editor)

From 1936 to 1943, John Vachon traveled across America as part of the Farm Security Administration photography project, documenting the desperate world of the Great Depression and also the efforts at resistance—from strikes to stoic determination. This collection, the first to feature Vachon's work, offers a stirring and elegant record of this extraordinary photographer's vision and of America's land and people as the country moved from the depths of the Depression to the dramatic mobilization for World War II. Vachon's portraits of white and black Americans are among the most affecting that FSA photographers produced; and his portrayals of the American landscape, from rural scenes to small towns and urban centers, present a remarkable visual account of these pivotal years, in a style that is transitional from Walker Evans to Robert Frank.

Vachon nurtured a lifelong ambition to be a writer, and the intimate and revealing letters he wrote from the field to his wife back home reflect vividly on American conditions, on movies and jazz, on landscape, and on his job fulfilling the directives from Washington to capture the heart of America. Together, these letters and photographs, along with journal entries and other writings by Vachon, constitute a multifaceted biography of this remarkable photographer and a unique look at the years he captured in such unforgettable images.

354 pages, Hardcover

First published November 12, 2003

Reviews

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

For a book about a well-known photographer, there is far too much text here and not enough photographs. I realize the intention was to convey Vachon's life and times in addition to the images, but the editor went way too far. I don't buy the argument that Vachon was a gifted writer who missed his true calling - based on the letters and journal entries presented here, his writing was chatty, shallow and rambling. I even skipped the latter half of the "Letters to Penny" section after its repetitive, plaintive tone wore me down. Great photographs though - just not nearly enough of them.