Close to Home: An American Album

by D.J. Waldie

A Siamese cat beneath a clotheslinethree women with linked arms standing on the front lawna man drying his hands on a dish towel in front of the kitchen stove. These scenes are part of Close to Home and the accompanying the Getty Museum exhibition held from October 12, 2004 to January 16, 2005, which celebrate snapshots--"found" photographs by anonymous photographers--that capture everyday life in all of its joy, banality, and mystery. Taken between 1930 and the mid-1960s, these photographs, most of them in black-and-white, create an unpretentious portrait of suburban American life by untrained photographers whose images can be unexpectedly lyrical and moving.

118 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2004

About the author

D. J. Waldie is a cultural historian, memoirist, and translator. In books, essays, and online commentary, he has sought to frame the suburban experience as a search for a sense of place. Often using his hometown of Lakewood as a starting point, Waldie’s work ranges widely over the history of suburbanization and its cultural effects.