Plain Pictures of Plain Doctoring: Vernacular Expressions in New Deal Medicine and Photography

Abstract

To anyone with an interest in the history of what we now refer to as primary care medicine, a subject that has received far too little attention, this beautifully compiled volume will be most welcome. Seldom have I read a book that has moved me more than this collection of photographs that portray average American physicians at work in the last years of the Depression. Small wonder that the photographs are moving, for they were taken by some of the greatest photographers of that era, including Walker Evans, Russell Lee, Arthur Rothstein, Ben Shahn, and Dorothea Lange. What adds so much to this book, however, is something not often seen with photo collections. The explanatory text that places the pictures and their times in an artistic, social, and economic context has itself a lyrical quality. Whether used to document or to reform, to illustrate or to entertain, the power of