Review: James R. Swenson. In a Rugged Land: Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, and the Three Mormon Towns Collaboration, 1953–1954. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2018.

Authors

Rachel McBride Lindsey

Keywords

Brigham Young, Zion, Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams, Mormon towns

Abstract

When Brigham Young surveyed the vista before him in 1847 and uttered “this is the place,” he meant that the wearied band of Latter-day Saints had finally arrived in Zion. More than a century later, those same words, simple but filled with divine promise, were seen on a neon cowboy at the Nevada state line and scribbled by a young Daniel Dixon as the first in his essay accompanying the Life magazine photo-essay, “Three Mormon Towns.” The year before the essay was printed, Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams pitched an idea to the editors at Life and were granted approval to pursue it.

BYU ScholarsArchive Citation

Lindsey, Rachel McBride (2020) "Review: James R. Swenson. In a Rugged Land: Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, and the Three Mormon Towns Collaboration, 1953–1954. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2018.," Mormon Studies Review: Vol. 7: No. 1, Article 14.
Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/msr2/vol7/iss1/14