Wisconsin Death Trip
Michael Lesy
Charles Van Schaick was the ultimate small-town photographer. Between 1890 and 1910 he worked in the town of Black River Falls, Wisconsin. He created visual records of births, marriages, families, businesses, homes and even horses to show their breeding potential. His portraits were intended simply to freeze a moment in time, to preserve a likeness. But at that time (the 1890s) it was seen as a semi-magical act that symbolically dealt with time and mortality.
Michael Lesy (1945) used the photographs of Charles Van Schaick from the Wisconsin Historical Society to write his Ph.D. dissertation. In 1968 he visited the Wisconsin Historical Society where he met the curator of photography who showed him the archive of small-town photographer Charles Van Schaick. Intrigued by the images of Van Schaick he wanted to know more. So he read countless newspapers from that time perod.
Lesy used mainly articles from the Badger State Banner. A weekly newpaper, which was edited by Frank Cooper and his son George. He found often haunting accounts of the harsh existence in this small Wisconsin town. This weekly dose of reality was delivered in a most distinctive tone. All across America, financial difficulites were causing banks to close. The depression hit Black River Falls hard. Businesses were closing, people were out of work. And when disease ravaged the community, all seemed hopeless. This was not the promised land they had travelled across an ocean to find.
Lesy made a selection from the collection of Charles Van Schaick photograps from the Wisconsin Historical Society to tell the story of a small town in a nation in despair during the depression years of 1885 – 1899. He inverted, flopped, cropped and made creative use of the images through collage. Images are paired with articles published in the Badger State Banner. Bizarre tales of madness, eccentricity and violence.
This darker side of life in a small mid-Western town is chronicled in Wisconsin Death Trip. It emphasizes the harsh aspects of Midwestern rural life. Epidemics, insanities, suicides, burnings, bank closings, early deaths. The American Dream gone wrong. Although the events described are factual, they do not tell the whole story. They have been specially selected by Lesy to tell his story. One of the book’s strentghs is the tension that arises from the contrast with Van Schaick’s photographs of everyday events.
Wisconsin Death Trip is originally published in 1973 by Pantheon Books. In the years following its publicaton it developed a cult following. In 1999 it was adapted into a succesful movie. It has been cited an inspiration for numerous other works. One of them is Some Say Ice from Alessandra Sanguinetti. The book was reprinted in 2000 by the University of Mexico Press and is still in print today.
Wisconsin Death Trip
Photographs by Charles Van Schaick
Sequencing and photomontages by Michael Lesy
Originally published in 1973 by Panteon Books
21,5 x 27,5 cm, 262 pages, 154 b&w photographs and photocollages and 9 b&w illustrations
Preface by Warren Susman, introduction and conclusion by Michael Lesy, excerpts from town archives and newspapers
Considered as one of the greatest photobooks of all time by Source Magazine
Mentioned in The Photobook, A History. Volume 2. Edited by Martin Parr and Gerry Badger.