"Jeff Allred draws on a range of seminal works to illustrate the convergence of modernism and documentary, two forms often regarded as unrelated. Whereas critics routinely look to James Agee and Walker Evans' Let Us Now Praise Famous Men as the sole instance of the modernist documentary book, Allred turns to such works as Richard Wright's scathing 12 Million Black Voices, and the oft-neglected You Have Seen Their Faces by Erskine Caldwell and Margaret Bourke-White to open up the critical playing field. And rather than focusing on the ethos of Progressivism and/or the politics and aesthetics of the New Deal, Allred emphasizes the centrality of Life magazine to the consolidation of a novel cultural form." "In a series of provocative and thoughtful case studies, Allred reveals how documentary texts invite readers to engage in a speculative practice of aesthetic construction. Thus the genre brought an increasing awareness of the nation's artistic vitality as well as itssocial failings. Carefully argued and rigorously researched, American Modernism and Depression Documentary establishes the documentary book as a major form that constitutes a critical legacy of both modernism and Depression-era culture."--BOOK JACKET.