The Common Good: An Indiana Heritage Built with Taxes, Tithes, and Tuition

Haunting images of crumbling, one-room, brick school houses; abandoned, pre-consolidation high schools; forlorn country chapels; and vacant, big-city churches fill the 144 pages of this captivating book. Also included are dramatic, sepia-toned portraits of the somber remains of a county home; derelict, closed-up buildings at a Victorian Era veterans’ hospital; gloomy, barred jail cells; a bleak and eerie mental hospital; and much, much more. Though most are now in decay, these once-proud structures and objects—built for our mutual benefit—still radiate with transcendent meaning and purpose.

John Bower’s compelling black-and-white photographs have been shown in 25 solo exhibitions throughout the Hoosier state, and he is represented in the permanent collections of several prominent Indiana museums, including the Indiana State Museum. He has received three Individual Artist Grants from the Indiana Arts Commission and, in 2008, he was named an Indiana Artisan. His work has been featured in scores of Hoosier publications. The Common Good is the seventh Indiana photography book he and his artist wife Lynn have created.