In 1950s America, the multilayered cultural landscape was
interwoven with post-World War II affluence and the optimistic perspective of
"The American Dream." 64% of the American population lived in urban
centers, and having a good paying job enabled individual families to afford
houses and cars and to raise their children in small towns and suburbs. Many
Americans were able, and compelled, to participate in the burgeoning economy of
consumption. Household appliances and conveniences multiplied at the service of
the stay-at-home housewife. The interstate highway system helped establish a
more mobile public. Disneyland and McDonalds opened, and the first credit cards
were issued. Television introduced a stylistically uniform pop culture into the
living rooms of American families throughout different regions of the country.
Rock and roll dominated the airwaves, while jazz and blues presented an
alternative urban sub-culture in such cities as New York, Chicago and Kansas
City. Additional varieties of goods and services were delivered to the middle
class through expanded routes of transportation, new forms of advertising and
broadcast media.
However, "The American Dream" was non-inclusive.
Underlying the glossy surface of comfortable living was a political and social
subtext of segregation, poverty and racial tension that led to the fight for
civil rights. The Korean War, the Cold War with Communist Russia, the “space
race” and nuclear arms struggle strengthened the military-industrial complex.
Espionage, McCarthyism, political unrest in Eastern Europe and the Middle East,
as well as the polio and Asian flu epidemics, contributed to a climate of
apprehension, suspicion and unrest. Robert Frank’s famous and
controversial book of photographs, The Americans, reflected a way of
life, sometimes joyous but often without hope and promise, which was in direct
opposition to upbeat images promoting the good life that average Americans saw
and read about in Life and Look Magazine.
By 1950 Kansas City was already known as a center for networking
and the distribution of goods through established industries revolving around
transportation, banking and insurance, the stock yards, garment production,
printing and cinematic film distribution. Many American cities began competing
with each other and promoting their individual characters and identities in
order to establish their roles as significant players in the newly developing
economy. The commercial photographer was part of the public world of special
events, newsworthy and otherwise, that were being produced as part of this new
marketability. Warner Untersee was a creative entrepreneur in Kansas
City who was able to make a living documenting and promoting this aspect of
"The American Dream." Similar
commercial photographic studios were emerging nation-wide, along with
advertising agencies and consumer-based industries that collectively would help
shape the emerging American consumer culture and mass media market. As current
styles replaced the old at increasingly rapid rates, the need for new
photographs and representations became integral to this process. By producing
images for sale, Untersee was helping to promote a local version of the new nation-wide
consumerism and desire for goods, services and entertainment that would in turn
help to define what "The Dream" was all about.
Present-day
viewers of the work of Warner Studio are perhaps struck by the limited scope of
society that is depicted. However, it
is important to remember that Untersee was neither a photojournalist nor
documentary photographer presenting an overview of the political and social
issues of the times. His commercial
work, however, does provide us with an invaluable database of information about
one aspect of mid-20th century life and culture in a growing and
changing post-war Midwestern city. Fields of investigation ranging from history, sociology, architecture,
urban planning, sports, leisure, fashion and pop culture can be researched
through this extensive image archive. Untersee’s compositions and photographic style are straightforward and
present a clear view of the city through the eyes of this special kind of
observer. Untersee was, perhaps
unwittingly, a visual anthropologist whose photographs provide a historical
perspective covering a wide range of sociocultural information for future
generations.
Gwen
Widmer
Kansas
City, Spring 2006