40 Powerful , much less than one picture per decade. There are easily 40 pictures from Viet Nam alone , or the American Civil Rights movement , the 60's . Rock and Roll has easily 40 pictures. Just picking 40 American pictures has it's pitfalls . Right from the start , futility. The thought process was more intriguing . Someone chose these pictures. Headlines usually reflect the sloppiness of any media.Every media has an audience or readership. What does this collection mean to this website's readers? Which years are more meaningful ? The qualifying words from the collector are a better indicator.
Is this young vs old , is there anything here that could be seen as a trend? My first impression , because of the unusual choices ,was someone trying to measure something.
The most powerful “news” pictures have that immediacy , crystallization , and also the element of capturing a high action moments . Many are flash point moments. The skill of the photographer , an “oh wow moment” a screaming face “ . The power of the “instant” , the fast lens the fast film , the fast reflex. These pictures speak for their time , they are “sport shooter” sharp point anomalies . One picture stands for its time.
Award winning .These are our skills. This is our criteria.
There are other photos , millions of photos . The variety and quality of pictures posted every day is staggering. The pictures in this collection are noticeably quiet , different. When you look into them , there is more of that “different” quality. The viewer can be more involved in the details of the foreground and background .
Some will focus on the weakest pictures others the strongest.
Great , greatest , powerful , most powerful , opinions . On the internet everyone gets to speak. The collection was qualified , my interest is to try to understand the thought process behind it . Someone had access to some very old newspaper archives . These archives are likely auctioned off , or tossed out like that last lot ( glass negs ,zinc plates tossed out on mass when newspapers moved into offset plants ). Some of these wire photo transmissions are ending up in flea markets.
Photographers names are missing from historic pictures in every media . The people who were there , replaced by ... It took so long to get properly credited in the smallest type possible. Picture history bought up like music collections , names become addresses .
I was not offended by the headline , seldom fooled by headlines. The Crimean War was 150 years, WW1 is 104 years , ago , this collection goes back about 70 years. 1930's could have a dust bowl picture from famous US ,Great Depression collection , or the rise of Nazism in Germany , famine in Ukraine .