As a self-described obsessive, one who readily admits she spends way too much time researching every little thing & scrap of paper for both its own history and its context, I naturally was intrigued by Louis P. Masur’s most recent book which delves into the history & context of just one photograph. Yes, an entire book dedicated to just one photograph.

Frankly, I was heady at the mere idea of such a thing. I wasn’t sure if I should be as delighted as I was — or simply green with envy that one man would have the luxury of time (and obviously the additional luxury of such committed focus) to one photograph — let alone convince a publisher of the merits of such work. But love of history won out and I grabbed the book to my chest.

As I said, the book, The Soiling of Old Glory: The Story of a Photograph That Shocked America, focuses on just one photograph — but it’s not just any photograph.

The photograph, The Soiling of Old Glory, is, despite my previous ignorance to it, quite a well-known, controversial, and award-winning photo:

On April 5, 1976, at an anti-busing rally at City Hall Plaza, Stanley Forman, a Boston Herald-American photographer, took a picture that stands as an icon of racial hatred in America. A teenager has transformed the flag into a weapon directed at the body of a black man. It is the ultimate act of desecration, performed in the year of the bicentennial in the shadows of Boston’s Old State House. Titled The Soiling of Old Glory, the photograph appeared in newspapers around the country and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1977. It haunts us still.

If that paragraph seems to imply all there is to the story, I assure you it’s not.

Masur takes us through the incident. He interviews the key players (including the white teenager who “transformed the flag into a weapon,” Joseph Rakes; the victimized young black man, Theodore “Ted” Landsmark; and the photographer, Stanley J. Forman — none of whom have remained frozen in time like the photo). And Massur sets the context in terms of the socio-economic conditions, politics and history of Boston as well as the personal histories of the individuals involved. It is, as promised on the book jacket’s front flap, a “biography of a photograph.”

Beyond “all that history,” we are also given much more.

We are to consider photography itself. Is that moment in time, in this case an image captured in 1/250th of a second, The Truth? If the camera cannot lie (only the photographer — and in this case, the photo is neither doctored nor posed), does this “snapshot” give us all we need to see The Truth? In fact, how do we see or read photographs? In some ways, we view them as Art — and in the case of The Soiling Of Old Glory, there are many comparisons to famous artworks and iconic photographs to be made. Masur makes them.

The author gives us history & context, examples & comparisons, for these issues, to further, well, complicate the issues. It’s not that Masur himself is unclear; rather it is the issues themselves which are complicated. They are not easy things to consider — nor easily dismissed.

After reading this book, one can no longer passively view a photograph.

But still we are not done. For central to this photograph, to the controversy, is a symbol: The American Flag. Without the flag itself, we do not have the same visceral reaction to this photograph (Bicentennial or not). So Masur gives a concise history lesson regarding the flag, including the cult of the flag and the related controversial issues of patriotism, free speech, and flag desecration.

Each one of these contextual pieces would be fascinating reads; but combined as the context to just one photograph, it’s nearly mind-blowing.

If you love history, you’ll love this book and want to add it to your book collection. But other collectors will love this book too.

If you collect Black Americana, you’ll see there are (unfortunately) much more modern works connected to more recent events & racism to be searching for.

If you collect photographs, as I do, you’ll never look at them so simply again — nor should you. But don’t worry; reading The Soiling of Old Glory: The Story of a Photograph That Shocked America will not detract from your obsession. On the contrary, you will find more value in your photographs, old & new.

If you collect flags — or just display them for holidays such as The Fourth of July — you’ll find in Masur’s book validation of your pursuit and the questions you might be posing with your collection. (In fact, I now contemplate collecting them, at least in photographs, folk art & outsider art works, as well as in ephemera.)

The Soiling Of Old Glory may indeed be a remarkable photograph (and I take nothing away from it’s standing), but more remarkable to me is Masur’s book. Not just for ending my 45 years of ignorance to the photo (and therefore the forced busing issue in Boston and the related American history); not just for validating my own obsessive needs to research the snot out of everything (and that should not be underestimated!); but for telling a story of an object with it’s full context & in such interesting, page-turning precision.

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Article Tags: art, book review, books, Boston, collecting, flag, fourth of july, history, photographs, photography, race

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This entry was posted on Monday, June 29th, 2009 at 5:37 am and is filed under reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.