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Neon cowboy, “Wendover Will,” in 1953. -
Mrs. Naegle, Toquerville, Utah, in 1953. -
Newspaper stand in St. George, Utah, 1953. -
Belle Bringhurst, Toquerville, Utah, in 1953. -
Main street full of children in Gunlock, Utah, 1953. -
Henry Bowler haying in Gunlock, Utah, 1953. -
Young elders, Bishop Hunt, Glen McAllister, and Guy Bowler in Gunlock, Utah, 1953. -
Canning, Gunlock, Utah, in 1953. -
Rockville Cemetery, Utah, in 1953. -
Paperboy in Toquerville, Utah, 1953. -
Church service in Toquerville, Utah, 1953. -
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In the 1950s, two legendary photographers created a body of work that has since been nearly forgotten. Dorothea Lange, whose images distilled the Great Depression, and landscape photographer Ansel Adams visited Utah — “The Place,” as Brigham Young called it — to document the lives of Mormon communities. Their “Three Mormon Towns” collaboration appeared in Life magazine, capitalizing on the public fascination with the growing religion, but the photographs all but faded from memory. In a Rugged Land re-assembles the images, capturing snippets of moving life as families rise from church pews, children balance atop horses and a mother cans pounds of green beans. In the text, James R. Swensen describes the project’s thorny history, showing how the images provide windows into the communities they depict as well as into the lives of their aging photographers, who hoped to “re-enter the discourse of photography.”
In a Rugged Land: Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, and the Three Mormon Towns Collaboration, 1953-1954
By James R. Swensen
432 pages, softcover: $34.95
University of Utah Press, 2018
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline See iconic photographers’ forgotten work in 1950s Mormon towns.
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