Parade—Hoboken, New Jersey, 1955
Gelatin silver print, printed 1971
8¾ × 13¼ in.
November 4, 2024
When Robert Frank’s book The Americans was published in the late 1950s, this was the photograph that set the tone, appearing as the first image readers saw when they opened the book. While the star-spangled American flag waves as a symbol of unity in the foreground, an air of disquiet pervades the scene behind it.
When Frank embarked on his Guggenheim funded trip across the North American continent, he found a sprawling nation that, behind its outward show of patriotic swagger, was full of lonely crowds and even lonelier outskirts. While Frank’s vision of the country was derided as overly critical, it is likely that Frank recognized that the United States is a country that has always promised a lot, and with that comes a unique kind of disillusionment, when the messier reality of things impresses itself upon the mind. The Swiss-born photographer also likely recognized a young country. A country that, emerging from the shadows of the second World War, had seen its innocence and optimism bruised, but still remained youthful, restless, and undefined.
Frank's vision has aged remarkably well because he shows us an America that we still recognize today: a nation that for all of its bravado remains ungainly, conflicted, and forever in a state of becoming—offering promise and disappointment as a two sided coin.
