Changing World (Hardcover)

Ike was president and JFK was running for the Senate. The interstate highway system was snaking across the map, and New England traditions were retreating only grudgingly. To Boston in the 1950s came a young photographer named Verner Reed. His collection of New England images -- most of them taken for Life magazine -- are heart-warming reminders of a lost world as near as your own childhood.The Verner Reed collection, now maintained by the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, is the subject of a new retrospective. Opening at the Museum of Our National Heritage in Lexington, Massachusetts, in September 2004, the show will tour select New England venues. A Changing World is a beautifully produced hardcover edition of the show catalog, printed in rich black-and-white duotones, with a foreword by SPNEA historian John Stomberg.You will be a witness to events of the 1950s and 1960s, including: John F. Kennedy's run for the SenateThe vigil for Julius and Ethel RosenbergThe aftermath of the Brinks robberyA visit to Harvard by T. S. EliotA doll wedding at the home of Tasha TudorYou will also enjoy dozens of New England scenes from a time gone by -- a taffy pull, a country fair, headlines posted on chalkboards along Boston's Newspaper Row -- captured by the extraordinarily perceptive eye of Verner Reed.

Verner Reed was born in Denver, Colorado. He attended Milton Academy and Harvard College before serving with the Army Air Corps during World War II. He settled in Stowe, Vermont, after the war, but soon moved to Boston, where he began covering New England for Life magazine. He photographed over 125 stories for Life. He was the first photographer exhibited at the DeCordova Museum, and his images also have appeared in Fortune, Paris Match, Time, and Vermont Life. Also noted for his sculpture, jewelrymaking, and silversmithing, Reed lives in Maine.