When We Liked Ike: Looking for Postwar America

Norfleet, Barbara

ISBN 10: 0393019667 / ISBN 13: 9780393019667

Published by W. W. Norton & Company, 2001

About this Item

Fast Free Shipping â Good condition. It may show normal signs of use, such as light writing, highlighting, or library markings, but all pages are intact and the book is fully readable. A solid, complete copy that's ready to enjoy.

Seller Inventory # GWV.0393019667.G

Bibliographic Details

• Title: When We Liked Ike: Looking for Postwar America
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication Date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0393019667
• ISBN 13: 9780393019667
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: good

About this title

Synopsis

A historical record in words and pictures of American society in the years following the Second World War.

After World War II, the prevalent self-image among America's white middle class was one of affluence, moral superiority, and contentment. This image is reflected in photographs in both advertising and the media during the late 1940s and 1950s showing perfect citizens and their families at work and at play. Many of these apparently candid photographs were in fact created by professional studio photographers―to portray the way most middle-class Americans wanted to present themselves.

But what many contemporary artists and intellectuals saw instead of this idyllic picture was widespread complacency and conformity, as well as racism, poverty, political witch hunts, and alienation. Their writings are excerpted here, juxtaposed with images depicting domestic bliss and wealth. This dissonance between the words of the social critics who emphasized our problems and discontents and the photographic images of how we wanted to see ourselves make the subsequent upheavals of the 1960s understandable. 170 duotone photographs

About the Author

Barbara Norfleet is founder and curator of the Photography Collection at Harvard University and an accomplished photographer. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.