Portraits in Steel
Frisch ( A Shared Authority: Essays on the Craft and Meaning of Oral and Public History ) and documentary photographer Rogovin here collaborate on a mid-1980s portrait of the lives of 12 former steelworkers, male and female, in Buffalo, N.Y. PW saw only a fraction of the black-and-white photographs but these are illuminating examples of what Frisch calls "a presentation of self." Frisch's introduction thoughtfully describes Buffalo through deindustrialization and tentative revival. His interviews are earnest, detailed and sometimes redundant. The workers describe their work in steel, from running the furnaces to pouring molten steel, their family life and how they have coped with adversity. Some have made a successful transition while others struggle: one man is on welfare; another guards the empty steel plant where he once worked. Most striking are the sometimes xenophobic, often uninformed but heartfelt responses workers give to Frisch's very leading questions about the decline of the economy: they presage the large numbers of voters who supported Bill Clinton and H. Ross Perot in the 1992 presidential race.Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.