Equal before the lens

the long version

This album of historical photographs from a small Texas town captures for all time the various ethnic groups and immigrants who lived there from 1925 to 1945. From the late 1800s, almost every town in America supported at least one commercial photographer who inadvertently documented its history through formal portraits and special assignments around the community. Over the course of his career, Trlica, [son of] a Czech immigrant[s], built a similar visual archive of the social life of his adopted home of Granger, Texas. McCandless has done a very good job of selecting, arranging, and interpreting the photographs, all of which are reproduced in duotone. The result is a lovely and intriguing book. Equal Before the Lens will be of obvious interest and value in regional collections. However, because it deals with an overlooked area in American studies, it also deserves a place in social history and documentary photography collections. Highly recommended for public and academic libraries. - Raymond Bial, Parkland Coll. Lib., Champaign, Ill. ©1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.