Chicago's South Side, 1946-1948

This book is a treasure. I wish I could find more by this photographer (my searches have come up empty). The photographs take you right inside each scene, and often pack a powerful punch of sadness, joy, intimacy, life. The printing quality is excellent. If the publisher can collect more of his work, I will be the first customer.

This is a marvelous collection of images from everyday Balck Chicago life in the late 1940s. There are scenes of street life, back alleys, patrons at a pool hall and tavern, and night life ranging from a female personator dressing to Duke Ellington hunched at a piano at rehearsal and an ebullient Louis Jordan on stage.

This is one of the best photographic books I've seen -- ever. Wayne Miller manages to make personal contact with the human beings who lived on Chicago's South Side in a way that few photographers have ever matched. The warmth and complexity of these photographs, the compassion and human understanding involved, are most remarkable -- especially since the photographer stood on the other side of America's terrible racial divide from his subjects. Anyone who loves classic documentary photography, or who simply loves human beings in their complexity, should order this book.

Chicago fascinates me, and this is a unique photographic record of a very special period in Chicago's history. Blacks were migrating from the South to Chicago in the hope of finding a better life in the post-war North. Wayne Miller captures ordinary life in this remarkable glimpse into Chicago's South Side. The photos are the sort that you continue studying, noticing increasing detail. Despite the intense racism, the South Side somehow held the prospect of a better tomorrow. I'm delighted Wayne Miller's photos of this important neighborhood made it into print.