Small Town America [Hardcover]

Though published in 1994 and photographed in small town America I can say that three of the places David Plowden visited are still on the map and thanks to Google's Street View I've been able to see the same shot he saw in Frederick, South Dakota, Janesville, Minnesota and Council Grove, Kansas. The same buildings, railroad tracks and street furniture are still there. It's nice to know that these places still exist though admittedly they might be facing a slow decay.

The 111 lovely photos really do capture the feel of towns away from the strip malls, housing sub-divisions, freeways and the rest of visual progress. Plowden has managed to capture a quietness and honesty that seems to exist in these places. I've looked through these photos several times over the years and I always close the book with the feeling that it is just one place. The editorial flow of images is just perfect to suggest Anytown USA. From Main Street with its railroad tracks, exterior and interiors of small shops, a bank, library, pre-1950 housing and inside rooms, small commercial concerns (and sometimes large grain elevators) to the few portrait shots, they all work so wonderfully well.

David Plowden has produced twenty or so books, with a constant theme, it seems to me, of capturing the ruggedness of a slightly past America. 'Small town America' covers this theme brilliantly.

If you are just discovering Plowden's work have a look at A Handful of Dust: Disappearing America, published in 2006 and it continues the theme of 'Small town America'. The 1997 published Imprints: David Plowden : A Retrospective, has 179 duotone photos selected from forty years of his work photographing the US.

***SEE INSIDE THE BOOK by clicking 'customer images' under the cover.

Product Description

In his 19th book on the American scene, Plowden (The End of an Era, Norton, 1992) has focused on what epitomizes small towns-before this endangered species disappears altogether. The well-produced images, arranged roughly by topic (e.g., schools, theaters, churches, home interiors, restaurants, stores, and grain elevators) and representing towns in many states (including Iowa, Kansas, West Virginia, New York, Minnesota, and Idaho), speak eloquently of small-town life. Even more so, they speak of change; by the time Plowden photographed these towns, most had been cut off from their rural heritages. Nevertheless, the photographs convey order, calm, and congeniality; the best of them evoke the work of Walker Evans, who, like Plowden, left scenes unaltered when he photographed them. For photography and U.S. social history collections.Kathleen Collins, New York Transit Museum Archives, BrooklynCopyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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