Photography and Modern Public Housing in Los Angeles

Abstract

In the 1940s, Los Angeles faced an acute housing crisis. The local housing authority responded with a controversial program of slum clearance and public housing construction along with photography that presented the crisis in innovative ways. This book brings these photographs together with hitherto unavailable sources to reveal a largely uninvestigated concept of housing photography. Case studies from Los Angeles, New York, and Berlin together with FBI records and nearly forgotten bulletins invite a new understanding of the history of housing and photography as one in which women scholars and commercial photographers played pivotal roles.