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LaPorte, Indiana
Jason Bitner, editor
By Michelle Humphrey
Jason Bitner, co-creator of Found Magazine, recently stumbled
upon a unique cultural archive — boxes and boxes of photography
portraits at B & J's American Café in LaPorte, Indiana.
These were the proofs of Muralcraft Studios, run by Frank and Gladys
Pease, and included photos of first communions, weddings, retirements,
and other milestones we commemorate with formal poses and dressing up.
After sifting through 18,000 images, Bitner assembled a book that is
a doorway to the past (and in a perfect example of life being more metaphorical
than fiction, LaPorte is French for "the door," named by 17th-century
French traders who regarded the land as a portal to the western frontier).
The pictures represent Americana of the 1950s and '60s, featuring women
in pearls, men in suits, soldiers in uniform, and children in their
Sunday best. Individual portraits invite stories: What became of the
girl in the feathered turban who seemed destined for the New York stage?
Did the boy mimicking Nixon pursue a career in comedy — or politics?
What could the two white-haired sisters in matching print shirts reveal
about coming of age in 1920s Indiana?
The photos are remarkable for their dramatic subtleties. A smug-faced
boy in a striped shirt is paired with a grown-up doppelgänger,
a complacent man in a pinstriped suit. A girl looking away from the
camera bites her lip while she holds a baby, and we wonder at her epiphany.
Elsewhere, the mischief on a boy's face mirrors the toy troll he holds
in his hand.
In choosing the pictures for the collection, Bitner expressly avoids
the oddball. His intent is to celebrate the ordinary, and he explains
that Frank Pease viewed his photography as a trade rather than an art.
Thus, LaPorte is not an exploration in formal aesthetics as much as
it is a history book. It conjures the larger context of the times: the
rise of the middle class and the boon of industry, but also the Cold
War, the early moments of the civil rights movement, and literary works
such as Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" and Betty Friedan's The
Feminine Mystique. When viewed as history or, more specifically,
as a modern archaeological find, LaPorte becomes a striking meditation
on the ways we strive to present ourselves to the world.
Rating: ***Good
Princeton Architectural Press, 2006 (ISBN: 1568985304)
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