Wisconsin Death Trip Alessandra Sanguinetti

[Tin Can]

A Photographer Revisits the Book That Taught Her About Dying

Inspired by an antique photo collection called “Wisconsin Death Trip,” Alessandra Sanguinetti went in search of her own American gothic.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/a-photographer-revisits-the-book-that-taught-her-about-dying

[Joe O'Hara]

I had a copy of that very strange book when I was at SIU in 1973. Lost now, I have sometimes wondered to what extent it was a fair representation of life at that time and place, as opposed to a kind of self-portrait of the author (Michael Lesy).

Could be I'm just out of the loop, but though we would acknowledge that life was much more difficult then for the working poor then than it is now, I've never heard of any other historian who painted such a grotesque picture of that era in the upper Midwest.

[Tin Can]

Small world

I was at SIU during the shutdown

and now close by it again for my duration


I had a copy of that very strange book when I was at SIU in 1973. Lost now, I have sometimes wondered to what extent it was a fair representation of life at that time and place, as opposed to a kind of self-portrait of the author (Michael Lesy).

Could be I'm just out of the loop, but though we would acknowledge that life was much more difficult then for the working poor then than it is now, I've never heard of any other historian who painted such a grotesque picture of that era in the upper Midwest.