This America
New York: Random House, 1966. Item #05876
Signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson
This America - LBJ’s Portrait of the Nation and His Vision of the Great Society
JOHNSON, Lyndon Baines. HEYMAN, Ken, photographer. This America. Photographed by Ken Heyman. New York: Random House, 1966.
First edition. Large quarto (11 1/2 x 8 1/4 inches; 292 x 210 mm.). [1-2], 4-169, [5], [2, blank] pp. Profusely illustrated throughout with black-and-white photographs by Ken Heyman.
Publisher’s blue buckram, front cover lettered in silver, spine lettered in gilt, light blue endpapers. In the original pictorial dust jacket. A fine copy in the price-clipped dust jacket, with some wear and minor chipping at extremities.
Boldly signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in black ink on the front free endpaper:
“Lyndon B. Johnson.”
An attractive signed first edition of President Johnson’s photographic portrait of the United States, published in 1966 at the height of his presidency and conceived as a visual expression of the aspirations - and challenges - of his Great Society.
This America combines Johnson’s words with the photography of Ken Heyman, creating a remarkable portrait of American life during one of the most consequential periods of social change in the nation’s modern history. Rather than a conventional political book, it juxtaposes excerpts from Johnson’s speeches and public statements with Heyman’s photographs of Americans and the country in which they lived.
The book was the editorial creation of Jerry Mason, who selected passages from Johnson’s speeches and messages to provide what the White House described as a “shooting script” for Heyman. The photographer then spent nearly six months traveling throughout the United States in search of images to accompany Johnson’s words. The first copy was formally presented to President Johnson on October 3, 1966.
The result is both a presidential document and a photographic record of America in the mid-1960s. Johnson addresses poverty, education, racial equality, urban life, the countryside, economic opportunity, and the responsibilities of government - subjects that lay at the heart of the domestic program with which his presidency remains identified.
In his prologue Johnson describes America not so much as a place but as a nation undergoing continuous transformation. His concluding remarks return to the principles that animated the Great Society: freedom, equality, and the possibility of “a more decent life for all.”
Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908-1973) became the thirty-sixth President of the United States following the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November 1963 and was elected to a full term in 1964.
His presidency produced one of the most ambitious programs of domestic legislation in twentieth-century American history.
Under Johnson, Congress enacted landmark measures including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights Act of 1965, Medicare and Medicaid, major federal education legislation, environmental protections, and an extensive series of anti-poverty programs. Collectively these initiatives formed the centerpiece of what Johnson called the Great Society.
This America, appearing in the middle of that extraordinary legislative period, is consequently more than a presidential picture book. It represents Johnson’s attempt to articulate visually and verbally the America his domestic program sought to transform.
Photographer Ken Heyman (1930-2019) enjoyed a long career in documentary and portrait photography. His work appeared in numerous books and major publications, and examples of his photography entered important American museum collections. For This America, Heyman traveled across the country documenting the people and places intended to embody the themes selected from Johnson’s writings and speeches.
A particularly attractive signed first edition of a visual statement of Lyndon Johnson’s America, published during his presidency and boldly signed by the architect of the Great Society.
Price: $950.00