Sumner 200: Portrait of a Small Maine Town - Softcover

Healy, George; Silber, Mark

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0966582608 ISBN 13: 9780966582604

Publisher: Town of Sumner, 1998

Synopsis

Sumner 200 is an unique treatment of a town history, using historical, anthropological, and photodocumentary approaches. The first part of the book has a historical essay by historian George Healy. It is accompanied by vintage photographs of the area and its people. The second part consists of eighty-five interviews with area residents. The interviews probe how people feel about living in a small , rural town in its transition from an agricultural community to a suburb of a small city. The interviews also touch on the lives of people who are as young as six years old to those who are in their late nineties, evoking everyday experiences as well as memories of the past. It is a fascinating an provocative portrait. People reading this book one hundred years hence will savor its frankness and breadth. The interviews are accompanied by black and white documentary photographs, sometimes of the people interviewed, sometimes of the whole groups representing organizations and families of the town. The photographs have been compared by reviewers to work of Walker Evans and Richard Avedon. This book would be of interest to historians, social scientists (anthropologists sociologists, oral historians, folklorists) and documentary photographers.

About this title

About the Author:

George Healy is a retired academic historian who has taught at MIT, Bates College and William and Mary. Mark Silber is an Anthropologist, a documentary photographer, an editor and an author of several books, including those published by David R. Godine Publishers, Sierra Club, Doubleday, and Alfred A. Knopf.

Review:

"Sumner 200" is a triumph. The mixture of old and new, the elegant typography and design, George Healy's equally elegant essay and splendid photographs combine to produce a portrait with no equal. The photographs strike just the right balance between the documentary, the informal snapshot-derived portrait and the formal. It's a complex blend that adds immeasurably to the visual worth of the book. The book is a model of its kind. -- Philip M. Isaacson, Art critic, Portland Press Herald

In short, it's a book anyone who has ever lived in a small town can enjoy and appreciate. -- Tom Leavitt, Director, Museum of Our National Heritage, Lexington, MA

Silber's photographs of present-day Sumner, Maine remind one of the famous photographs of the USA by Walker Evans in the late 1930s. Timeless and indelible, they record the backbone of America. Ironically, the backbone of America does not look too different today, as people are returning to small towns to establish roots, and search for values that have made America strong in the past. The powerful photographs make the book an aesthetic gem. The individual interviews in the book adjacent to the photographs record oral history at its best. -- Pat Davidson Reef, Sun Journal, Lewiston, Maine

Sumner 200 is a beautiful accomplishment --the photographs are marvelous, the interviews are superb and I loved the essay by George Healy, which was absolutely engrossing. Seeing the book made my day! -- Erik Jorgensen, Former Director of Pejepscot Historical Society

The book takes a bold new step. After looking back at the town's past, "Sumner 200" turns swiftly around and locks onto the face of its present. In "Sumner 200" history is alive and staring you right in the eye. -- Alicia Anstead, Bangor Daily News

This portrait of Sumner emerges in the pages of a recently published bicentennial history, one of the most unusual examples I've seen. This one is handsome (thanks to the design capabilities of Terry Silber), historically thoughtful (thanks to academic George R. Healy), and as addictive as eating peanuts (thanks to the photographs and text by Mark Silber) The photographic portraits .. are wonderful - straightforward but revealing, reminding me of the early work of Richard Avedon. For those who want to learn more about Maine, the book is a page turner; for those who want to see the possibilities of creative local history, its is a model. -- Peter W. Cox, Maine Times

About this edition

• Publisher: Town of Sumner
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0966582608
• ISBN 13: 9780966582604
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 248