Eyes on Labor by Carol Quirke, Paperback | Indigo Chapters

Eyes on Labor narrates an essential chapter in American cultural history, offering a fascinating broad-stroke history of the relationship of photography to the complex and troubled history of twentieth-century labor and unionization movements. It examines a subject that is critical tounderstanding the Great Depression, the New Deal, and beyond-organized labor-in the form of its representation in a realm that has received little attention-news photography. The book provides simultaneously, a detailed history of the representation (and self-representation) of labor within labormovements (something rarely addressed, given the usual focus on iconic photographs and images of heroic, idealized workers), and of the labor movement more generally, with the process of representation highlighted as its principal narratives. It focuses on "instrumentalist" labor photojournalism, and, in particular, the visualization of militance, addressing the antithesis of the focus of the (oft-studied) Farm Security Administration. Quirke chronicles how labor activism was documented and also how that documentation - mediated bycertain publications - legitimated, expanded, and also limited organized labor's role in mid-century U. S. politics and society. Her weaving of contexts and specifics, different moments of the past and their echoes today, is sure-footed. In short, she shows that photography was essential to a largerbattle of national attitudes toward labor movements and the broader unionization movement in the US during the first half of the 20th century | Eyes on Labor by Carol Quirke, Paperback | Indigo Chapters