Mel Rosenthal Photoprints
name: label: Photographer
content: Rosenthal, Mel, 1940-2017
label: Donor
content: Perrymapp, Roberta
note: label: See Also
content: In the South Bronx of America / Photographs by Mel Rosenthal. Willimantic, CT: 2000.
place: label: Place
content: New York (N.Y.) -- 20th century
label: Place
content: Bronx (New York, N.Y.)
topic: label: Topic
content: Immigrants -- 20th century
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: Collection donated by Roberta Perrymapp, July 21, 2012.
creator: label: Photographer
content: Rosenthal, Mel, 1940-2017
label: Donor
content: Perrymapp, Roberta
culture: label: Culture
content: African Americans -- 1960-1970
setName: label: See more items in
content: Mel Rosenthal Photoprints
abstract: label: Summary
content: Black-and-white photoprints from two documentary projects: "In the South Bronx of America" and "Refuge". Mel Rosenthal's mission in the Bronx project was to record the deterioration and poverty there. Some photographs from the Bronx project have also been used in the "Refuge" project, because they document immigrants who moved into the Bronx.
bioghist: label: Biographical / Historical
content: Mel Rosenthal was born on March 5, 1940, and grew up close to the South Bronx neighborhood in which he made many of the photographs in this collection decades later, beginning in 1975. He earned a Ph.D. in English literature and American studies from the University of Connecticut, with a dissertation on the effect of alienation on American writers.

He traveled to Africa and worked as a medical photographer at the University Hospital in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. He engaged in other photographic projects there and soon had dedicated himself to documentary photography.
He became a Distinguished Professor of Art at SUNY/Empire State College. He has been the photography editor of culturefront, the magazine of the New York Council for the Humanities. He was awarded fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 49 Items (1 box, unmounted, 8" x 10" and 11" x 14".)
unitdate: label: Date
content: circa 1975-2010
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives Center, National Museum of American History
identifier: label: Identifier
content: NMAH.AC.1307
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Black-and-white photographic prints
arrangement: label: Arrangement
content: The collection is arranged into two series.

Series 1: In the South Bronx of America, as reproduced in the book

Series 2: Not in Book: From the "South Bronx of America" Project and the "Refuge" Project
processinfo: label: Processing Information
content: Processed by NMAH Staff, undated
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Black-and-white photographic prints -- Silver gelatin -- 1950-2000
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: Silver gelatin black-and-white photoprints from two documentary projects: "In the South Bronx of America" (1975-1983, 43 prints) and "Refuge" (6 prints). According to Leonard Kriegel, Rosenthal's mission in the Bronx project and its book version was simply "to record the horror that is there....He wants us to feel shame at what has been done to the people of the South Bronx by a nation so indifferent to suffering that it can pretend the mean streets were burned down by their inhabitants." (Kriegel, "In Sorrowful Celebration of the Bronx," Forward, Feb. 23, 2001, p. 13).

In the 1960s and 1970s many American cities were decaying, but the South Bronx was an extreme case. It became notorious for arson fires ignited to avoid the legal and financial hurdles involved in condemning and demolishing decaying residential buildings. Rosenthal's photographs show the aftermath of the fires, as well as the people living in the neighborhood.

Six prints in this collection are from a linked but separate photographic project, "Americans by Choice: the Refuge." This project extended to other areas of New York State, depicting immigrants of different origins, going about their daily lives.