To mark the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, the Guardian have come up with something rather better than the Yank equivalent of the Willy Wonka Experience that is the Great American State Fair: publishing a selection of 48 photos dating as far back as the Gold Rush in 1852 - some instantly recognisable, some hugely influential, some lesser known but no less fascinating - that collectively help to trace the nation's turbulent history. Big-name photographers are represented, but so too are amateurs who simply happened to be in the right place at the right time to capture moments that are now imprinted on the American psyche.
In her framing introduction, Sarah Churchwell argues that "[p]hotography became the US's perfect art for because truth and myth could occupy the same frame". She concludes that the pictures "show the country inventing itself from evidence, denial, desire, grief. Every image asks not only what was made visible, but what a nation needed it to mean." The captions provided by Felix Bazalgette and Alice Robb are also excellent, succinctly explaining the context of every photo and helping to underline the significance of what they depict.
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