Customer Reviews

Chicago's South Side, 1946-1948 (George Gund Foundation Imprint in African American Studies)

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Chicago fascinates me, and this is a unique photographic record of a very special period in Chicago's history. Blacks were migrating from the South to Chicago in the hope of finding a better life in the post-war North. Wayne Miller captures ordinary life in this remarkable glimpse into Chicago's South Side. The photos are the sort that you continue studying, noticing increasing detail. Despite the intense racism, the South Side somehow held the prospect of a better tomorrow. I'm delighted Wayne Miller's photos of this important neighborhood made it into print.

This is one of the best photographic books I've seen -- ever. Wayne Miller manages to make personal contact with the human beings who lived on Chicago's South Side in a way that few photographers have ever matched. The warmth and complexity of these photographs, the compassion and human understanding involved, are most remarkable -- especially since the photographer stood on the other side of America's terrible racial divide from his subjects. Anyone who loves classic documentary photography, or who simply loves human beings in their complexity, should order this book.

This book is a treasure. I wish I could find more by this photographer (my searches have come up empty). The photographs take you right inside each scene, and often pack a powerful punch of sadness, joy, intimacy, life. The printing quality is excellent. If the publisher can collect more of his work, I will be the first customer.

This is a marvelous collection of images from everyday Balck Chicago life in the late 1940s. There are scenes of street life, back alleys, patrons at a pool hall and tavern, and night life ranging from a female personator dressing to Duke Ellington hunched at a piano at rehearsal and an ebullient Louis Jordan on stage.

There are so many interesting photos in this book. The photographer did a great job! I will be ordering more books with photos soon.

I highly recommend this book to study the social aspects of 20th century South Side Chicago. The images are fantastic and I use it for historical costume research.

while in France recently at Chalon-sur-Soane I visited their photography museum. They were doing a special exhibit of this work. I was so totally impressed on how Miller could capture these photos while seeming to be invisable to his subjects that I investigated when I returned and discovered that this book was available. I bought TWO; one for myself and one for my daughter who is a serious photographer.

These striking images of Bronzeville -- "Chicago's Harlem" -- will blow you away. The humanity they portray, in all its beaten-down, lifted-up, heartbreaking reality, makes me wish I knew personally every man and woman depicted herein.

Wayne Miller, a white photographer now well into his 80s, went into the Bronzeville ghetto over a two-year period and made these touching pictures; then they "went into a drawer" for 40 years, until finally the Univ of Calif Press published this book. (The book itself is as well-produced a book of photographs as you are likely to find anywhere.)

My grandfather Nathan Joseph ran the States Theatre at 3507 S. State St., in the heart of Bronzeville, for some 50 years (unfortunately the States is not depicted herein). I myself have written a novel of Bronzeville called "To Love Mercy" (Mid-Atlantic Highlands, ISBN 0-9744785-3-9). A historical Afterword appears at the end of "To Love Mercy;" it is an oral history of Bronzeville, in the voices of a dozen people who lived there in the '40s and '50s. This Afterword is illustrated with seven of Wayne Miller's photos from "Chicago South Side, 1946-1948."

I have given close to a dozen copies of "Chicago South Side" as gifts. I was coming to Amazon to buy two more copies when I saw this opportunity to write a review.

These photos have moved me to tears. Buy this book.

SOUTHSIDE OF CHICAGO NEEDS PICTURES OF MARTIN LUTHER KING DR. BACK IN THE YEARS OF (1948-1970S) SOUTHPARK HAS AND ALWAYS IS A BEAUTIFUL STREET. THERE ARE HOMES THAT ARE STILL THERE, BUT ONLY A FEW. I ENJOY THIS BOOK VERRRY MUCH! ALSO WE NEED A BOOK ABOUT THE SOUTH-WEST SIDE OF CHICAGO, IN THE ENGLEWOOD NEIGHBORHOOD FROM 59TH AND RACINE TO 59TH AND ASHLAND. THE BLOCKS BETWEEN THEM LIKE THROOP, ADA, LOOMIS & BISHOP ARE VERY GOOD NEIGHBORHOODS IN THE ENGLEWOOD AREA ON THE SOUTHWEST SIDE OF CHICAGO AND GOOD SCHOOLS.