Picture Machine

The insatiable demand for photographic images in the early decades of the 20th century led the news wire agencies to create a comprehensive record of American life. Among the 300 photographs included in these pages are pictures of major events such as the crash of the Hindenburg, the Scopes trial and Charles Lindbergh after his trans-Atlantic flight. It is not however just a chronology of world events or a collection of iconographic images. Equally interesting to the contemporary reader will be the photographs created on "off" or slow-news days, that reveal the intricacies and idiosyncrasies of daily life. Ultimately, the book will examine the dynamic process of how the cultural climate both shaped and was in turn shaped by these images, and how they continue to do so a century after their creation.