Wisconsin Death Trip
Published in 1973, this remarkable book about life in a small turn-of-the-century Wisconsin town has become a cult classic. Lesy has collected and arranged photographs taken between 1890 and 1910 by a Black River Falls photographer, Charles Van Schaik. (Goodreads.com)
Stats for nerds
1recommend
2mentions
2people
2021–2025years
50% recommend50% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- For a compelling, if morbid, insight to the petite horrors and tragedies of farming and small-town life, see Wisconsin Death Trip:
a 1973 non-fiction book by Michael Lesy, based on a collection of late 19th century photographs by Jackson County, Wisconsin, photographer Charles Van Schaick – mostly taken in the city of Black River Falls – and local news reports from the same period. It emphasizes the harsh aspects of Midwestern rural life under the pressures of crime, disease, mental illness, and urbanization.
- The funny thing is, Daisey was not the first time narrative journalism – aka documentary media – has waltzed down the path to fiction. Famously, we have the film Nanook of the North and the book Wisconsin Death Trip, case studies I covered when I was in journalism program, before TAL. Today, we might call these works docudrama, but the blurring of the line between drama and journalism remains.
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