His first stop was Ford’s River Rouge plant in Dearborn Michigan. “I was absolutely free just to turn left or turn right without knowing what I would find.” All in all, he took 28,000 shots for a book that would be called The Americans. While he took his family on some of these road trips, he traveled alone for most of it, and it was a very lonely and grueling trip. He visited Michigan, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Texas, California, Nevada, Utah, Montana, and Illinois. I was attracted by what you call somber events.”įrank grew a close relationship with Walker Evans and received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1955 with the help of Evans and Edward Steichen, which allowed him to purchase a used Ford and travel across the U.S. “At that time as a photographer, I searched for very clear and strong pictures. He saw a grim and lonely country that was obsessed with money, and perhaps Frank was in-tune to noticing this due to his father’s relationship with wealth. However, he soon began to notice that there was a difference between the optimism and propaganda about American society versus the reality. Travel.” Parade – Hoboken, New Jersey.įrank worked as a fashion photographer for Harper’s Bazaar and then as a freelance photojournalist for McCall’s, Vogue, and Fortune. It was another world, where you could move, where you could take the train somewhere. “Leaving Switzerland and coming to America, we felt like the door opened.

in 1947, and at first, he felt the optimism of America in the ’50s. It was mandatory that you would go somewhere and learn English.” Frank moved to the U.S. “ certainly convinced me to get out of Switzerland. If my father had a good day, dinner would end and my father would take out his wallet and give my mother 100 Swiss francs.” It became the most important thing in order for them to feel good.

“My father married my mother because of money.

While his peers were photographing the optimistic and prosperous 50’s post-war United States, Frank’s photography took a stark and much more realistic turn.įrank’s childhood was difficult – in the 1930s, the fear of Hitler invading was real, and Frank’s father was stateless due to his German citizenship being revoked for being Jewish. Despite being born in Switzerland, Robert Frank defined and diagnosed America in the ’50s in ways that his contemporaries couldn’t.

The americans by robert frank