Trolley - New Orleans 1956
During his travels he photographed cowboys, long roads, coffins, jukeboxes, diners, rodeos, factory workers, transexuals, african-americans, buildings, farmyards, the american flag and the list goes on. during the time in the 1950s there were different times in the states where black people were referred to as "Negros" rather then africans or foreigners and the community was split apart from the white community and the black community, from this image (shown above) showing what seems to be a bus where the white people were sitting in the front and the black people were sitting in the back as well as the image (shown below) showing factory working split in the middle of an assembly line where the white people are on the left and the black people are on the right. The top image was used as a front cover on the Robert Frank book called The Americans which shows images of america in the 1950s during his travel around the states. The book was based on post-war events after the second world war in a time where the United States was changing in the mid 20th century. The book was published in 1958 in france and a year later in America.
Robert Frank was presenting his work in the book from the beginning of his journey to the end showing the culture of America in the 1950s at the time of jukeboxes, the change in music, fashion and hollywood stars. I think Robert Frank wanted to show us what Americas was like at that time and how much has changed since then.
Bibliography
Well L., 2009, Photography: A Critical Introduction, 4th edition., Oxon, Routledge, p103 and 272
