“Small-Town Women, which I chose as the cover image for my book, presents a female, domestic, and bourgeois interior. Crucially, it is dated 1913, which positions it just on the brink of the war that would really begin the 20th century; and it seems eloquent of a kind of existence that would be shattered over the course of that century. The women in the photograph pose without embarrassment, but also without guardedness or suspicion; they seem to be regarding us with leisurely curiosity, even as they represent a way of living whose leisure might now seem oppressive. For me, the image inspires a mixture of nostalgia and resistance.”
From People of the Twentieth Century: Group I, Portfolio 6, Photograph 10