The photographer's signature appears on a reproduction stuck on the inside of the back cover.
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\nIn 1977, Stephen Shore traveled through New York, Pennsylvania, and eastern Ohio—a region in the midst of industrial decline that would eventually become known as the Rust Belt. Shore met with steelworkers who had been thrown out of work by factory closures and photographed their suddenly fragile world: deserted factories, lonely bars, dwindling strip malls, and ornately decorated homes. In these images, we see a prosperous middle America teetering on the precipice of disastrous decline. Hope and despair lurk endlessly behind the surfaces of storefronts, domestic interiors, and the strained expressions of those who face Shore’s 4x5 vision camera. Originally commissioned as an extended photo essay for Fortune Magazine in the vein of Walker Evans, Shore’s multifaceted investigation has only gained political prominence in the years since. Shore’s subjects—including workers, union leaders, and family members—had voted for Jimmy Carter the year before his visit; now he found them disillusioned with the new president, doomed to leave the Democratic Party behind and become “Reagan Democrats.” Through consistently captivating images from one of the world’s acknowledged masters, Steel Town offers an immersive portrait of a time and place whose significance for our own is increasingly urgent.
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\nWith text by Helen C. Epstein, author, translator and professor of human rights and public health.
