American Industry is as much a celebration as it is documentation.
Through his unique vision and privileged access, photographer Kim Steele
has achieved a spectacular distillation of a variety of icons of
power.
Some of these places of power are literal: sources of hydro-electric
energy, such as dams or atomic and accelerators. Other places of power
are more metaphorical: the might of massive construction as only heavy
industry can achieve, whether in architecture or ships; or the romance
of aviation and the exploration of space.
The photographic images are as iconic as their subjects. Formally pure
and powerful in their scale and clarity, they mirror the ambitious and
inspirational quality of what are now understood to be quintessential
and classic symbols of American ingenuity and drive. Together, the seven
chapters, Hydro Power, Aviation, Heavy Industry, Energy, Space, Atomic
Energy, and The Future, create a visual tapestry of American industrial
power in the twentieth century. A testimony of a guilded age of American
Industrial might.