Dwight Garner at the New York Times:
“Wisconsin Death Trip” is 50 years old this year, and it’s an anniversary worth heeding. Lesy’s unclassifiable book earns its portentous title, and its tone has influenced many disparate works of art. It is a haunting backdoor into history and a raw experiment in feeling. It has never been, as the fissures in American life deepen, more relevant.
The book began its life at the University of Wisconsin, where Lesy was studying for a master’s degree. (It became his doctoral thesis at Rutgers.) At the Wisconsin Historical Society, he chanced upon thousands of photographs taken between 1890 and 1910 by Charles Van Schaick, a photographer in Black River Falls. Van Schaick didn’t think of himself as an artist. His images were work for hire. But when Lesy began to sort through them, they spoke to him. He saw in them gravid documents “created at the secret heart of this culture.”
more here.