Viking Press

Viking Press

Viking Press is an American publishing company owned by the Penguin Group, which has owned the company since 1975. It was founded in New York City on March 1, 1925, by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheim...

 published the book You Have Seen Their Faces in 1937, by noted photographer Margaret Bourke White and novelist Erskine Caldwell

Erskine Caldwell

Erskine Preston Caldwell was an American author. His writings about poverty, racism and social problems in his native South like the novels Tobacco Road and God's Little Acre won him critical acclaim, but they also made him controversial among fellow Southerners of the time who felt he was...

, then husband and wife. Immediately thereafter a paperback version was published by Modern Age Books.

Contents

For this pictorial survey about rural American South and its troubles, Bronx

The Bronx

The Bronx is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City. It is also known as Bronx County, the last of the 62 counties of New York State to be incorporated...

-born Bourke-White took the pictures, while Georgia

Georgia (U.S. state)

Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...

-born Caldwell wrote the text. Together, they both wrote captions:

Bourke-White lay in wait for her subjects with a flash, and wrote with pleasure of having them “imprisoned on a sheet of film before they knew what had happened.” The resulting portraits are by turns sentimental and grotesque, and she and Caldwell printed them with contrived first-person captions.

This book predates Let Us Now Praise Famous Men

Let Us Now Praise Famous Men

Let Us Now Praise Famous Men is a book with text by American writer James Agee and photographs by American photographer Walker Evans first published in 1941 in the United States...

(1941) by James Agee

James Agee

James Rufus Agee was an American author, journalist, poet, screenwriter and film critic. In the 1940s, he was one of the most influential film critics in the U.S...

 and Walker Evans

Walker Evans

Walker Evans was an American photographer best known for his work for the Farm Security Administration documenting the effects of the Great Depression. Much of Evans's work from the FSA period uses the large-format, 8x10-inch camera...

.

Title

(The book's title is reminiscent of two short stories by Whittaker Chambers

Whittaker Chambers

Whittaker Chambers was born Jay Vivian Chambers and also known as David Whittaker Chambers , was an American writer and editor. After being a Communist Party USA member and Soviet spy, he later renounced communism and became an outspoken opponent later testifying in the perjury and espionage trial...

 in The New Masses

The New Masses

The "New Masses" was a prominent American Marxist publication edited by Walt Carmon, briefly by Whittaker Chambers, and primarily by Michael Gold, Granville Hicks, and Joseph Freeman....

: "You Can Make Out Their Voices" (March 1931) and "You Have Seen the Heads" (April 1931). The former story Hallie Flanagan

Hallie Flanagan

Hallie Flanagan was an American theatrical producer and director, playwright, and author, best known as director of the Federal Theatre Project, a part of the Works Progress Administration .-Background:...

 (later director of the WPA

Works Progress Administration

The Works Progress Administration was the largest and most ambitious New Deal agency, employing millions of unskilled workers to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads, and operated large arts, drama, media, and literacy projects...

's Federal Theatre Project

Federal Theatre Project

The Federal Theatre Project was a New Deal project to fund theatre and other live artistic performances in the United States during the Great Depression. It was one of five Federal One projects sponsored by the Works Progress Administration...

) made into a popular play under the title "Can You Hear Their Voices?"

See also

• Margaret Bourke White
• Erskine Caldwell
  Erskine Caldwell
  Erskine Preston Caldwell was an American author. His writings about poverty, racism and social problems in his native South like the novels Tobacco Road and God's Little Acre won him critical acclaim, but they also made him controversial among fellow Southerners of the time who felt he was...
  
  
• Whittaker Chambers
  Whittaker Chambers
  Whittaker Chambers was born Jay Vivian Chambers and also known as David Whittaker Chambers , was an American writer and editor. After being a Communist Party USA member and Soviet spy, he later renounced communism and became an outspoken opponent later testifying in the perjury and espionage trial...
  
  
• Bibliography for Whittaker Chambers
  Bibliography for Whittaker Chambers
  -Film on or including the Hiss-Chambers case:* Nixon, 1995, directed by Oliver Stone, - video clips of Whittaker Chambers* Concealed Enemies, 1984, directed by Jeff Bleckner, - made-for-television movie on the Hiss-Chambers case...
  
  
• Hallie Flanagan
  Hallie Flanagan
  Hallie Flanagan was an American theatrical producer and director, playwright, and author, best known as director of the Federal Theatre Project, a part of the Works Progress Administration .-Background:...
  
  

External links

• Library of Congress
• Google Books
• Encyclopædia Britannica
• Art Icono - photos by Margaret Bourke-White
• University of Virginia - photos by Margaret Bourke-White
• Monroe Gallery - photo by Margaret Bourke-White
• New Yorker - "It Happened One Decade" (September 21, 2009)