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This book collects over 20 original essays and a selection of photographs by Swiss writer and photographer Annemarie Schwarzenbach, from her time spent travelling in the United States in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Schwarzenbach s work was rediscovered in Europe almost 50 years after her early death in 1942. Since then, she has become a cultural icon and an emerging heroine of the early LGBT movement.
Schwarzenbach s photojournalist work was produced against a European background of interwar economic uncertainty, political turmoil and burgeoning fascism. She carefully studied America s underbelly during the late Depression, at a time of Jim Crow and the height of the US labor movement. Schwarzenbach traveled across the U.S., reporting on its cities and people, visiting factories and steel mills and speaking with union leaders. She interviewed well-known writers like Dorothy Thompson and Carson McCullers, but equally focused her attention on textile workers and African Americans.
Schwarzenbach s work revealed ambivalence regarding what she saw during her travels, her horror, but also her begrudging admiration for, and even hope in, America and its peculiar brand of democracy. This book carefully records and translates her observations in English for the first time, also providing a critical introduction to her life and work.
List of contents
Introduction by Sibyl Schwarzenbach.- Part One: Method: AS on Writing & Photography Mss. Pages.- 1. Interview without a Reporter.- 2. Photographs as Documents.- Part Two: USA 1936 -1937: First Impressions: The End of American Optimism?.- 3. Rediscovery of America.- 4. The End of American Optimism?.- 5. Paper mills & Small Farms in Maine.- 6. The Radio Priest.- 7. Beyond New York.- 8. Unknown Washington.- 9. The Journey to Pittsburg: America's Iron City.- 10. The Question of Democracy American Style.-Part Three: USA 1937-1938: Heading South: Labor & Race Relations.- 11. In the Shadows of Knoxville.- 12. A Farmhouse, Workers and Farmers in the Mountains of Tennessee.- 13. Aline Bryant, Textile Worker.- 14. In the Cumberland Mountains.- 15. Strike in Lumberton, North Carolina.- 16. The Cotton Belt.- 17. ...in the Name of Southern Honor.- Part Four: USA 1940-41: War & the Final Visit.- 18. Westwards.- 19. American Journal: The Worlds Fair.- 20. Carson McCullers: Hope for America.- 21. On Dorothy Thompson.- 22. White Plains.- Conclusion.- Notes.- Bibliography.
About the author
Sibyl A. Schwarzenbach is a Professor of Philosophy at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York City and Baruch College in New York, USA.
Laura Radosh is a freelance translator based in Berlin, Germany.
Summary
This book collects over 20 original essays and a selection of photographs by Swiss writer and photographer Annemarie Schwarzenbach, from her time spent travelling in the United States in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Schwarzenbach’s work was rediscovered in Europe almost 50 years after her early death in 1942. Since then, she has become a cultural icon and an emerging heroine of the early LGBT movement.
Schwarzenbach’s photojournalist work was produced against a European background of interwar economic uncertainty, political turmoil and burgeoning fascism. She carefully studied America’s underbelly during the late Depression, at a time of Jim Crow and the height of the US labor movement. Schwarzenbach traveled across the U.S., reporting on its cities and people, visiting factories and steel mills and speaking with union leaders. She interviewed well-known writers like Dorothy Thompson and Carson McCullers, but equally focused her attention on textile workers and African Americans.
Schwarzenbach’s work revealed ambivalence regarding what she saw during her travels, her horror, but also her begrudging admiration for, and even hope in, America and its peculiar brand of democracy. This book carefully records and translates her observations in English for the first time, also providing a critical introduction to her life and work.
