Charles Mintz did what many historians want to do: knock on people's doors and say, "Who are you and whatcha got in there?" His gentle inquiries about Lustron houses reveal a slice of ongoing American history stilled for a moment in his rich, quiet photographs of ordinary citizens and their homes. There are so many reasons for the success of these photographs: a tight project scope, a photographer with an interesting relationship with his sitters, viewers being given access to strangers' homes and permitted to visually prowl around. In the end, Mintz's photographs are a complex swirl of personal, family, and architectural history that all say something about what it means to be an American between 1948 and today. Much like the Lustron house itself, the tight parameters of the project force the differences in each resident's life and personal aesthetic to the fore. Continuities among the photographs include the subject matter (all portraits of people and their homes, which are also similar), the print size, and the narrow scope of photographic conventions. That all were produced within a contained time period and the challenges of a largeformat camera give the body of work a framework from which so many noted differences can spill forth. The architecture of the homes provides repeated formal and visual structures within the photographs. The built-in bookcase, as a fixed reference point in the living rooms, is fascinating. One of Mintz's subjects, Barbara, even tells Mintz how her mother, Mary, loved that feature. Mintz, often using this framing architecture, rapidly brings the viewer a wealth of visual clues about the lives of his subjects, who are often positioned on their couches under or near the bookcase. These niches, fueling our curiosity, reveal the treasures and identities of the sitters. These bookcases, seen over and over, reinforce how even when given the same formula, Americans will make it their own. In some homes the enamel is chipped, and rust stains the tiles. Bob and Helen stand between a damaged window ledge and the front door, with a "God Bless America" sticker and various cause-related ribbon magnets behind them. This is who they are, in their unapologetic, unadorned everydayness. Grant Wood's American Gothic colors nearly every portrait of a man and woman squared to the camera and staged directly in front of their home. The closer to the Midwest the portrait seems, the brighter that historical reference shines. She looks selfconscious with her arms crossed in front of her; he, in his plastic Crocs and bald eagle T-shirt, looks kind but frank. They offer us more of a portrait about the persistence of a midwestern stereotype than the story of this house. But then, this Lustron house is part of midwestern history, and so perhaps we wind up circling back to the point that these are two regular citizens who live their God-fearing, compassionate lives in the home they have marked as their own and as part of a larger history. The portrait of Jim and Ida in their kitchen is similar, but with the added bonus that he is wearing overalls. Despite many shared and popular beliefs and attitudes that may point to midwestern and American identities, it is not all pretty nor easy to reconcile. In Mike and Sheila , Mike wears a sleeveless Harley-Davidson denim shirt and baseball cap, which suggests an outlaw-like affiliation. Sheila, standing on the porch with him, has on a tie-dyed T-shirt, the legacy of peace protesters and the counterculture movement. To the right is an antique gas pump that nods to the system of vehicles and highways that were integral to delivering their Lustron home kit to its site; to the left is a black lawn jockey. All these signs and symbols coexist under a waving American flag. As Mintz writes in his essay, "Life is messy." This photograph makes the point that shared experience, shared identity, and shared culture does not mean that we all agree; it means that we understand it can all coexist, even in contradiction. Excerpted from Lustron Stories by Charles Mintz All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
