Magnum Book Club: America in Crisis

Let’s take a closer look at America in Crisis, a group project exploring the clash between the American Dream and the realities of America in the late 1960s.

The initiative, presented as both a book and an exhibition, was led by photographer and then Magnum member Charles Harbutt and the agency’s New York bureau chief Lee Jones at a moment of great social and political upheaval in the United States. The country was still reeling from the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy, while racial tensions, economic inequality, civil unrest, and growing opposition to the Vietnam War continued to intensify.

Published in 1969, America in Crisis cast a critical eye on the country, challenging the myth of American exceptionalism, through the work of 18 Magnum photographers. Divided into eight thematic chapters, the project examined the long-running contradictions embedded within American society.

Although documentary photography was still associated with objectivity, Harbutt understood that the meaning of photographs changed depending on context. Captions were kept deliberately minimal and the photographers themselves were often only credited at the back of the book.

The work is a call to action. And yet, almost 60 years later, many of the issues explored in America in Crisis still feel painfully current. Photography bears witness to the past in the hope that it might help us better understand the present, and perhaps prevent history from repeating itself. Looking back at the project today, it’s difficult not to ask how much has really changed.

Available Photobooks: 

Magnum America: A New Magnum Photobook on the United States