Way We Were: New England Then New England Now [Hardcover]

Daniel Okrent (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

These photographs of New England are culled from the University of Louisville's archives of the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey. Under the direction of Roy Stryker, the company sponsored a photographic documentary project in the latter 1940s and early 1950s on the role of oil in the life of America. Photojournalists Esther Bubley, John Vachon, Gordon Parks, Todd Webb, and others interpreted the assignment as a documentary on the life of the era, with or without the Esso sign. Okrent, the editor of New England Monthly , visited the towns and the descendants of those originally portrayed and relates the fates of farms, family stores, and lives from an "America at the last moment before television, before suburbanization, before the enormous democratizing force of the GI Bill was fully felt." His observations provide a link to the real focus of the book: the strong and evocative black-and-white photographs of Americans at work and play from another era.
- Ann Copeland, formerly with Drew Univ. Lib., Madison, N.J.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 179 pages
• Publisher: Grove Pr; 1st edition (September 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1555843581
• ISBN-13: 978-1555843588
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 9.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,977,050 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Yesterday comes alive, March 15, 2010

By 

Robin Benson - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Way We Were: New England Then New England Now (Hardcover)

How refreshing to find a book that ticks all the right boxes: first-class content rich photos; captions that tell you more than what is obviously visible in the photo; simple yet elegant layout; good paper and printing.

The reason for these photos is rather intriguing. They were taken by eight excellent photojournalists: Esther Bubley, Charlotte Brooks; Arnold eagle; Sol Libsohn; Gordon Parks; John Vachon; Todd Webb and Diane Witlin, working for Roy Stryker who had been hired by Standard Oil New Jersey (now Exxon Mobil) to improve their image. Esso had been under attack for suspected complicity with the Nazis during the war years. The photographers had a wide mandate to capture everyday life and oil across the Nation with or without an Esso sign in the frame.

It seems that New England, from 1944 to 1953, got more coverage than the rest of the country and it shows. Everything is here: home life; farming; fishing; in the classroom; factories, recreation, small town life and landscapes. I thought one of the lovely things about the book are photos that show people, not posed looking at the camera but doing things, either individually or in groups, a doctor with a patient, a family at mealtime, children in a classroom or fishermen handling their catch. It's as if the camera wasn't there and we looking in and this gives the photos credibility and an honesty not normally seen in documentary work.

Another editorial item worth mentioning are the photo captions. In this book they work. People are named and what they are doing explained, whether they are on the farm or in a factory, places have their background revealed, shops and street scenes are placed in the context of the community. This is Roy Stryker getting the best from his staff photographers: they not only took great images but collected background information to make their work come alive.

'The way we were' delivers because Daniel Okrent has created the perfect look back.

***SEE SOME INSIDE PAGES by clicking 'customer images' under the cover.