Ep. 198: Deborah Dash Moore Walkers in the City: Jewish Street Photographers of Midcentury New York

Deborah Dash Moore Walkers in the City: Jewish Street Photographers of Midcentury New York - In the middle of the twentieth century, good cameras became smaller and lighter, enabling street photographers to roam alleyways, ride elevated trains and subways, and stroll beaches in summertime to capture daily life with urgency and intimacy. Walkers in the City showcases the distinctive urban vision that working-class Jewish photographers produced with these new cameras on New York City's streets and in public spaces. Drawing on the experiences of and photographs by a generation of young Jewish photographers who belonged to the New York Photo League, Deborah Dash Moore offers a new perspective on New York as seen through their eyes--a cityscape of working-class people and democratizing public transit. With their cameras, they pictured Gotham's abrasive social milieu and its evanescent textures and light, creating an archive of vernacular images of city life and a distinctive tradition of street photography that would be widely imitated. Walkers in the City documents how these roving, imaginative New Yorkers, entranced by the medium of photography, transformed everyday sights into rousing, joyous, and poignant moments of time, creating visual poetry out of the fabric of social life.About Deborah Dash Moore - Deborah Dash Moore is an American Jewish historian whose scholarship focuses on Jewish urban life, the creation of ethnic identity, and visual culture. Much of her work has concentrated on New York’s vibrant Jewish community, uncovering its neighborhoods, streets, institutions, and photographic images.  She has also explored the postwar Jewish culture of America’s Sunbelt, ventured into the experience of Jews who served in World War II, and examined the impact of women and gender in Jewish life.  Moore has been a trailblazer in the field of American Jewish history who has chronicled the myriad expressions of Jewish culture in 20th-century America. She has been an influential teacher and mentor as well as a key leader in the field of modern Jewish history.https://lsa.umich.edu/history/people/faculty/ddmoore.htmlCreditsStephen Bluhm - Sound Engineer and episode editor ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.stephenbluhm.fun⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Rich WexlerProducer/Interviewer ⁠⁠⁠http://www.vintageannalsarchive.comEpisode EditorsOtter Castro https://www.instagram.com/ottercastro