The store will not work correctly when cookies are disabled.
JavaScript seems to be disabled in your browser.
For the best experience on our site, be sure to turn on Javascript in your browser.
Michael Lesy
author
Michael Lesy is an American non-fiction writer known for his work combining historical photographs with original writing. He grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and received a B.A. from Columbia University, an M.A. from the University of Wisconsin, and a Ph.D. from Rutgers University. From 1990 to 2020, he served as an emeritus professor of literary journalism at Hampshire College. His debut book, 'Wisconsin Death Trip' (1973), was inspired by his studies in American social history and became a cult classic for its haunting portrayal of life and death in rural Wisconsin at the turn of the century.
Themes
American social history
photography
mortality
rural life
Works by Michael Lesy
Wisconsin Death Trip 1973 · Pantheon Books · book · English First book; adapted into a film in 1999. Real Life: Louisville in the Twenties 1976 · Pantheon Books · book · English Time Frames: The Meaning of Family Pictures 1980 · Pantheon Books · book · English Bearing Witness: A Photographic Chronicle of American Life 1982 · Pantheon Books · book · English Visible Light 1985 · Crown Publishing Group · book · English The Forbidden Zone 1987 · Farrar, Straus, and Giroux · book · English Rescues: The Lives of Heroes 1991 · Farrar, Straus, and Giroux · book · English Dreamland: America at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century 1997 · The New Press · book · English Long Time Coming: A Photographic Portrait of America, 1935-1943 2002 · W. W. Norton & Company · book · English Angel's World: The New York Photographs of Angelo Rizzuto 2005 · W. W. Norton & Company · book · English Murder City: The Bloody History of Chicago in the Twenties 2007 · W. W. Norton & Company · book · English Repast: Dining Out at the Dawn of the New American Century 2013 · W. W. Norton & Company · book · English Co-authored with Lisa Stoffer. Looking Backward: A Photographic Portrait of the World at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century 2017 · W. W. Norton & Company · book · English Snapshots 1971–77 2021 · Blast Books · book · English
Awards
2006
Simon Fellow
United States Artists Foundation
2013
Guggenheim Fellowship for Photography Studies
Guggenheim Foundation
References
Michael Lesy bio at Encyclopedia.com link
Snapshots 1971–77 at Amazon link
Robert Birnbaum. Identity Theory. 2003 link
Hampshire College faculty page for Michael Lesy link
