u003cbu003eThe recreation of a landmark in 1930s documentary photography.u003cbru003eu003c/bu003eu003cbru003eThe 1939 book u003ciu003eChanging New Yorku003c/iu003e by Berenice Abbott, with text by Elizabeth McCausland, is a landmark of American documentary photography and the career-defining publication by one of modernism's most prominent photographers. Yet no one has ever seen the book that Abbott and McCausland actually planned and wrote. In this book, art historian Sarah M. Miller recreates Abbott and McCausland's original manuscript for u003ciu003eChanging New Yorku003c/iu003e by sequencing Abbott's one hundred photographs with McCausland's astonishing caption texts. This reconstruction is accompanied by a selection of archival documents that illuminate how the project was developed, and how the original publisher drastically altered it.u003cbru003eu003cbru003eMiller analyzes the manuscript and its revisions to unearth Abbott and McCausland's critical engagement with New York City's built environment and their unique theory of documentary photography. The battle over u003ciu003eChanging New Yorku003c/iu003e, she argues, stemmed from disputes over how Abbott's photographsand photography more broadlyshould shape urban experience on the eve of the futuristic 1939 World's Fair. Ultimately it became a contest over the definition of documentary itself. Gary Van Zante and Julia Van Haaften contribute an essay on Abbott's archive and the partnership with McCausland that shaped their creative collaboration.u003cbru003eu003cbru003eCopublished with Ryerson Image Centre, Toronto
