Background
Alan Trachtenberg was born on March 22, 1932 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States to Isadore and Norma Trachtenberg.
("Lincoln's Smile demonstrates why Alan Trachtenberg has b...)
"Lincoln's Smile demonstrates why Alan Trachtenberg has been the leading scholar in American studies for more than four decades." ―Casey Nelson Blake, Columbia University Alan Trachtenberg has always been interested in cultural artifacts that register meanings and feelings that Americans share even when they disagree about them. Some of the most beloved ones―like the famous last photograph of Abraham Lincoln, taken at the time of his second inaugural―are downright puzzling, and it is their obscure, riddlelike aspects that draw his attention in the scintillating essays of Lincoln's Smile and Other Enigmas. With matchless authority, Trachtenberg moves from daguerreotypes to literary texts to subjects as diverse as Louis Sullivan's Auditorium Building, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the early works of Lewis Mumford.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0809065738/?tag=2022091-20
2008
(A classic examination of the roots of corporate culture, ...)
A classic examination of the roots of corporate culture, newly revised and updated for the twenty first century Alan Trachtenberg presents a balanced analysis of the expansion of capitalist power in the last third of the nineteenth century and the cultural changes it brought in its wake. In America's westward expansion, labor unrest, newly powerful cities, and newly mechanized industries, the ideals and ideas by which Americans lived were reshaped, and American society became more structured, with an entrenched middle class and a powerful business elite. Here, in an updated edition which includes a new introduction and a revised bibliographical essay, is a brilliant, essential work on the origins of America's corporate culture and the formation of the American social fabric after the Civil War.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0809058286/?tag=2022091-20
(Winner of the Charles C. Eldredge Prize In this book, Ala...)
Winner of the Charles C. Eldredge Prize In this book, Alan Trachtenberg reinterprets some of America's most significant photographs, presenting them not as static images but rather as rich cultural texts suffused with meaning and historical content. Reading American Photographs is lavishly illustrated with the work of such luminaries as Mathew Brady, Timothy O'Sullivan, and Walker Evans--pictures that document the American experience from 1839 to 1938. In an outstanding analysis, Trachtenberg eloquently articulates how the art of photography has both followed and shaped the course of American history, and how images captured decades ago provocatively illuminate the present.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0374522499/?tag=2022091-20
(Fourteen of Walker Evans's evocative photographs of Brook...)
Fourteen of Walker Evans's evocative photographs of Brooklyn Bridge, most of which have never been published, appear in this edition of Alan Trachenberg's Brooklyn Bridge: Fact and Symbol. In the new afterword Trachenberg explores the history of Hart Crane's The Bridge, especially the poem's integral relationship with the powerful photography of Evans. "[Brooklyn Bridge] is familiar in so many movies, in so many stage sets and, as Mr. Trachtenberg shows in this brilliant . . . book, it is at least as much a symbol as a reality. . . . Mr. Trachtenberg is always exciting and illuminating."—Times Literary Supplement "The book is a skillful and insightful synthesis of materials about Brooklyn Bridge from such diverse fields as history, engineering, literature and art. Essentially it asks the question of why Brooklyn Bridge achieved such great impact on the nineteenth century American imagination and why it has continued to have a significant impact on twentieth century art and literature. In addition to its exploration of the bridge's symbolic significance, which includes perceptive analyses of such particular works as Hart Crane's great poem cycle and the paintings of artists like Joseph Stella, the book also includes a solidly researched account of the conception, planning and construction of the bridge. Trachtenberg's account of the intellectual and cultural sources of the bridge is particularly fascinating in its demonstration of the convergence of many different philosophical and ideological currents of the time around this great engineering enterprise, illustrating as effectively as any discussion I know the complex interplay of ideas and material culture."—John G. Cawelti, University of Chicago "Alan Trachtenberg's Brooklyn Bridge is a fascinating story, the philosophic genesis of the idea in Europe, John Roebling's heroic effort to translate it into masonry and steel, and the meanings that Americans attached to the physical object as an emblem of their aspirations."—Leo Marx, Amherst College, author of The Machine in the Garden Fourteen of Walker Evans's evocative photographs of Brooklyn Bridge, most of which have never been published, appear in this edition of Alan Trachenberg's Brooklyn Bridge: Fact and Symbol. In the new afterword Trachenberg explores the history of Hart Crane's The Bridge, especially the poem's integral relationship with the powerful photography of Evans. "[Brooklyn Bridge] is familiar in so many movies, in so many stage sets and, as Mr. Trachtenberg shows in this brilliant . . . book, it is at least as much a symbol as a reality. . . . Mr. Trachtenberg is always exciting and illuminating."—Times Literary Supplement "The book is a skillful and insightful synthesis of materials about Brooklyn Bridge from such diverse fields as history, engineering, literature and art. Essentially it asks the question of why Brooklyn Bridge achieved such great impact on the nineteenth century American imagination and why it has continued to have a significant impact on twentieth century art and literature. In addition to its exploration of the bridge's symbolic significance, which includes perceptive analyses of such particular works as Hart Crane's great poem cycle and the paintings of artists like Joseph Stella, the book also includes a solidly researched account of the conception, planning and construction of the bridge. Trachtenberg's account of the intellectual and cultural sources of the bridge is particularly fascinating in its demonstration of the convergence of many different philosophical and ideological currents of the time around this great engineering enterprise, illustrating as effectively as any discussion I know the complex interplay of ideas and material culture."—John G. Cawelti, University of Chicago "Alan Trachtenberg's Brooklyn Bridge is a fascinating story, the philosophic genesis of the idea in Europe, John Roebling's heroic effort to translate it into masonry and steel, and the meanings that Americans attached to the physical object as an emblem of their aspirations."—Leo Marx, Amherst College, author of The Machine in the Garden
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226811158/?tag=2022091-20
("A book of elegance, depth, breadth, nuance and subtlety....)
"A book of elegance, depth, breadth, nuance and subtlety." --W. Richard West Jr. (Founding Director of the National Museum of the American Indian), The Washington Post A century ago, U.S. policy aimed to sever the tribal allegiances of Native Americans, limit their ancient liberties, and coercively prepare them for citizenship. At the same time, millions of new immigrants sought their freedom by means of that same citizenship. Alan Trachtenberg argues that the two developments were, inevitably, juxtaposed: Indians and immigrants together preoccupied the public imagination, and together changed the idea of what it meant to be American. In Shades of Hiawatha, Trachtenberg eloquently suggests that we must re-create America's tribal creation story in new ways if we are to reaffirm its beckoning promise of universal liberty.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0809016397/?tag=2022091-20
Alan Trachtenberg was born on March 22, 1932 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States to Isadore and Norma Trachtenberg.
Trachtenberg graduated from Temple University with Bachelor of Arts degree in English in 1954. After that he moved to University of Connecticut and received Master of Arts degree from it 2 years later. The last educational institution, from which he finally obtained a Doctor of Philosophy degree in American studies in 1962 was University of Minnesota.
Trachtenberg started his career at Pennsylvania State University in University Park at the position of a faculty member, for 8 years from 1961. In 1969 he became a professor of English there. That same year Trachtenberg changed his working place and moved to Yale University at the position of visiting professor of English and American studies, he held that post for a year.
In 1970 Trachtenberg became a faculty member at that educational institution. For a 2 years from that same year Trachtenberg worked as a director of graduate studies in American studies, becoming a professor in 1972. He was a chair of American studies from 1971 to 1973. He served as a director of graduate studies in American studies, as well, for a year from 1974.
Among his writings are volumes on American writers Hart Crane and Frank Waldo. He has gained the most critical attention, however, for his books Brooklyn Bridge: Fact and Symbol, The Incorporation of America: Culture and Society in the Gilded Age, and Reading American Photographs: Images as History, Matthew Brady to Walker Evans.
Trachtenberg examines American society during the thirty years after the Civil War in his 1982 book, The Incorporation of America, which documents the impact of corporate organization on the traditional values prevalent in that day.
In 1989 Trachtenberg published another well-received book, Reading American Photographs, a study of American photography from 1839 to 1938. Trachtenberg focuses on the stories that photographs tell about the society and economics of the era, and examines five phases in the history of photography: the daguerreotype, which produced photographs on silver or silver-covered copper plates; the Civil War portraits captured by Matthew Brady; post-Civil War photographs, typically of Western landscapes; the social commentary photographs from the late-1800s to World War I; and, finally, the work of photographer Walker Evans, whose photographs remain as poignant reminders of the Great Depression. Reading American Photographs is illustrated with numerous examples of the photographic work the author covers, and Trachtenberg encourages his audience to read the photographs; to apply the rules of literary criticism and interpretation to the illustrations in order to analyze them as one would study literature, seeing beyond the obvious to grasp a deeper understanding of each photograph’s meaning.
Nowadays he works as a Jr. Professor Emeritus of English and American Studies at Yale University.
(A classic examination of the roots of corporate culture, ...)
(Fourteen of Walker Evans's evocative photographs of Brook...)
("Lincoln's Smile demonstrates why Alan Trachtenberg has b...)
2008("A book of elegance, depth, breadth, nuance and subtlety....)
(Winner of the Charles C. Eldredge Prize In this book, Ala...)
Trachtenberg is a member of American Studies Association, as well as Modern Language Association of America.
Trachtenberg married Betty Glassman on December 21, 1952. They have 3 children - Zev, Elissa and Julia.