The Oxford project

In this cleverly designed and artfully illustrated publication, artist Feldstein and Bloom (journalism & mass communication, Univ. of Iowa; Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America) document inhabitants of the small town of Oxford, IA, with more than 300 black-and-white photographic portraits and first-person narratives. Feldstein, who was living in Oxford in 1984, offered to photograph for free all the town's residents; 20 years later, he photographed as many of his previous subjects as he could locate, and Bloom interviewed 100 of the residents. Masterfully and collaboratively conceived, this book consists of demographic, historical, and visual data about Oxford and snapshots of the town's inhabitants in 1984 juxtaposed to those taken in present times, many of which are offset by their stories. Of significance to humanities scholars and social scientists as well as to general readers who may relate to its subjects, this work provides a good glimpse of small-town America but is unlikely to be the most authoritative vision. Accompanying a traveling exhibition to China and Italy, this publication is strongly recommended for many undergraduate academic, large public, and local library collections, particularly those encompassing documentary photography and narrative journalism.--Cheryl Ann Lajos, Free Lib. of Philadelphia (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.