Why am I passionate about this?

I am a hopeless photographer. But I have a passion for looking at photographs, for trying to understand how good ones work. They are not just momentary slices of life but structured artefacts, sometimes technically interesting, that in myriad ways reflect the society that produced them. I studied aspects of US cultural history at three universities. After devoting the first part of my academic career to American literature, in the second half – during which, supported by wonderful fellowships, I spent much time rooting in archives – I gave myself up to American photography. I have learnt much from each of the books I commend here. 


I wrote

The Grass Shall Grow: Helen Post Photographs the Native American West

By Mick Gidley,

Book cover of The Grass Shall Grow: Helen Post Photographs the Native American West

What is my book about?

The Grass Shall Grow resurrects the work of Helen M. Post (1907-79), an important if half-forgotten photographer, whose commissions on…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of American Photography (Oxford History of Art)

Mick Gidley Why did I love this book?

This book is a lively, questioning, and comprehensive survey of American photography, from its beginnings to the present. It analyzes achievements in each of the genres, from portraiture, through landscape, to documentary, fashion, etc. It treats individual photographic artists, from Avedon to Weegee, from the views of New York taken by Berenice Abbott to J.T. Zealy’s likenesses of enslaved Africans. American Photography is always concerned to underscore what photographs have to tell us about major aspects of American culture: race and ethnicity, gender and identity, business and technology, religion, and region. It also has numerous well-reproduced images; illuminating sidebars and boxes on such topics as the daguerreotype or picture magazines; a helpful timeline; and notes on further reading and viewing. The book was expanded and retitled as Photography in America in 2015, but the first edition still holds up. 

By Miles Orvell,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked American Photography (Oxford History of Art) as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This lively new survey offers fresh insights into 150 years of American photography, placing it in its cultural context for the first time. Orvell examinines this fascinating subject through portraiture and landscape photography, eamily albums and memory, and analyses the particularly 'American' way in which American photographers have viewed the world around them. Combining a clear overview of the changing nature of photographic thinking and practice in this period, with an exploration of key concepts, the result is the first coherent history of American photography, which examines issues such as the nature of photographic exploitation, experimental techniques, the power of…


Book cover of Reading American Photographs: Images as History-Mathew Brady to Walker Evans

Mick Gidley Why did I love this book?

The late Alan Trachtenberg (he died in 2020) did more than any other scholar or critic to further our understanding of photographs as cultural documents. This book – probing, detailed yet precise, and endlessly interesting – is his masterpiece. The chapters devoted to Civil War photographs and to American Photographs (1938), the extraordinary photobook produced by artist Walker Evans, are especially powerful. There is a sense in which the books I commend by other authors here – including my own The Grass Shall Grow (2020) -- would not be possible without Trachtenberg’s example.

By Alan Trachtenberg,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Reading American Photographs as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Winner of the Charles C. Eldredge Prize

In this book, Alan Trachtenberg reinterprets some of America's most significant photographs, presenting them not as static images but rather as rich cultural texts suffused with meaning and historical content. Reading American Photographs is lavishly illustrated with the work of such luminaries as Mathew Brady, Timothy O'Sullivan, and Walker Evans--pictures that document the American experience from 1839 to 1938. In an outstanding analysis, Trachtenberg eloquently articulates how the art of photography has both followed and shaped the course of American history, and how images captured decades ago provocatively illuminate the present.


Book cover of Picturing an Exhibition: The Family of Man and 1950s America

Mick Gidley Why did I love this book?

“The Family of Man” – the huge exhibition of documentary photographs curated in 1955 by photographer Edward Steichen at New York’s Museum of Modern Art that then traveled the world – is probably the most influential photography show ever conceived. It included images of individuals and groups representing cultures from around the world. These were made by a gamut of major photographers, the majority of them American. The show was seen in person by hundreds of thousands of people and, literally, millions more have encountered the book version of the show. Sandeen’s engrossing study reveals both how the exhibition reflected Steichen’s own humanistic beliefs and how it spoke to larger cultural concerns. More recent scholarly work by, among others, Shamoon Zamir and Sandeen himself, have shown that “The Family of Man” was more controversial and less specifically “American” than was originally thought.

By Eric J. Sandeen,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Picturing an Exhibition as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"The Family of Man", a photography exhibition curated by Edward Steichen, opened at the Museum of Modern Art in 1955. More people saw that exhibit than any other show of photographs, and the book of the same title remains in print to this day. Despite the enormous success of this assemblage of photographs, surprisingly little critical attention has been paid to The Family of Man as a phenomenon.

Eric Sandeen presents here the first in-depth study of the exhibit and its influence worldwide. He examines how the exhibit came to be assembled, the beliefs and background Edward Steichen brought to…


Book cover of A Way of Seeing: Photographs of New York

Mick Gidley Why did I love this book?

Women photographers have all too often been overlooked or forgotten. (This happened to the subject of my own book choice, Helen Post.) But Helen Levitt – who really flourished from the 1940s through the 1960s and is now undergoing something of a renaissance – has always had devotees. Steichen invited her to contribute to The Family of Man and one of her most notable admirers, James Agee, the novelist, poet, film critic, and documentarian, was pleased to write the insightful essay to A Way of Seeing. Levitt’s quirky pictures of street life – especially those featuring children, often at play – document quite ordinary customs at a particular moment. Despite never seeming intrusive, they get up close, reveal the photographer’s rapport with her subjects, and present them, so to speak, on the level. Ultimately, these images are so expressive that they become universal, transcending the period in which they were made.

By Helen Levitt,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Way of Seeing as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Taken over a number of years beginning in the early 1940s, the 51 photographs in this book -- many of them of children and of the poor, many taken in Harlem -- reveal the face of the city as it was and are an enduring image of existence as this artist sees it. The accompanying essay by James Agee is both a commentary on the pictures and an eloquent statement of the nature of the creative act and what it means or the art of photography.


Explore my book 😀

The Grass Shall Grow: Helen Post Photographs the Native American West

By Mick Gidley,

Book cover of The Grass Shall Grow: Helen Post Photographs the Native American West

What is my book about?

The Grass Shall Grow resurrects the work of Helen M. Post (1907-79), an important if half-forgotten photographer, whose commissions on Indian reservations throughout the American West during the Great Depression produced striking and informative images.

It recounts Post’s career, from her coming of age in turbulent Vienna to her work for the U.S. Indian Service, tracking the arc of her professional reputation. It treats her interactions with such prominent white figures as Indian Commissioner John Collier and a variety of Native Americans: leaders (Crow superintendent, Robert Yellowtail, for example), noted craftspeople (including Sioux quilter Nellie Star Boy Menard), and ordinary individuals, people she photographed wherever she found them – at school, in hospital, dancing in ceremonies, or out in the fields. Thoroughly researched and accessibly written, the book constitutes a serious reappraisal of an independent woman artist who captured a respectful and empathetic portrait of Native American life in troubled times.

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The Open Road

By M.M. Holaday,

Book cover of The Open Road

M.M. Holaday Author Of The Open Road

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up a fan of an evening news segment called “On the Road with Charles Kuralt.” Kuralt spotlighted upbeat, affirmative, sometimes nostalgic stories of people and places he discovered as he traveled across the American landscape. The charming stories he told were only part of the appeal; the freedom and adventure of being on the open road ignited a spark that continues to smolder. Some of my fondest memories from childhood are our annual family road trips, and I still jump at the chance to drive across the country.

M.M.'s book list on following the open road to discover America

What is my book about?

Head West in 1865 with two life-long friends looking for adventure and who want to see the wilderness before it disappears. One is a wanderer; the other seeks a home he lost. The people they meet on their journey reflect the diverse events of this time period–settlers, adventure seekers, scientific expeditions, and Indigenous peoples–all of whom shape their lives in significant ways.

This is a story of friendship that casts a different look on a time period which often focuses only on wagon trains or gunslingers.

The Open Road

By M.M. Holaday,

What is this book about?

After four years of adventure in the frontier, Win Avery returns to his hometown on the edge of the prairie and tracks down his childhood friend, Jeb Dawson. Jeb has just lost his parents, and, in his efforts to console him, Win convinces his friend to travel west with him―to see the frontier before it is settled, while it is still unspoiled wilderness.

They embark on a free-spirited adventure, but their journey sidetracks when they befriend Meg Jameson, an accomplished horsewoman, lost on the Nebraska prairie. Traveling together through the Rocky Mountain foothills, they run into Gray Wolf, an Arapaho…


5 book lists we think you will like!

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