Generously illustrated with photographs from early twentieth century reformers to contemporary artists, this collection of essays re-examines the genre of social documentary photography through the shifting lens of photographic objectivity, modes of dissemination, and the passions animating documentary projects.

While the public’s acceptance of photographs as visual evidence made documentary photography possible, canny interventions employed by image makers and their editors alternately exploit and dismantle assumptions of the medium’s transparency, testing our wish to see pictures inspire social change.

Among the photographers included in the exhibition and book are Berenice Abbott, Max Alpert, William Castellana, Walker Evans, Larry Fink, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Lewis Hine, Boris Ignatovich, Dorothea Lange, Igor Moukhin, Gordon Parks, Alexander Rodchenko, Arthur Rothstein, Sebastião Salgado, Arkady Shaikhet, Aaron Siskind, W. Eugene Smith, Weegee et al.