The tumultuous fifties: a view from The New York Times photo archives

Abstract

The Cold War, Sputnik, Joseph McCarthy, Fidel Castro, Rosenbergs, Marilyn Monroe, Rosa Parks, Father Knows Best and Rebel Without a Cause are just a few of events, people, and cultural phenomena that marked decade of 1950s. This stunning book, a collection of two hundred large-scale duotone photographs of 1950s culled from New York Times photo archives, brings this watershed period to life and examines who and what was important and why. The photographs, which include both famous and lesser-known images, are arranged thematically, under headings 'America in World War Hot and Cold', 'Mechanization in Command', 'Fame and Infamy', 'Growing Up American', and 'American Ways of Life'. The pictures are accompanied by two major essays that look at role and development of news photography at New York Times and relevance of what pictures were taken and which were published by paper. A third, shorter essay on the morgue is a lively description of photo archive, telling where and how photos are stored. Together photographs and essays shed new light on a decade that is still shadowed by misconceptions and stereotypes. This book accompanies an exhibition that opens at Albright-Knox Art Gallery in January 2002 and travels to nine American cities from New York to Boulder over next three years.