Death of Valley

Rochester, NY Aperture, inc. 1960.

First and only edition. Special issue 8.3 of Aperture. 234x202mm. pp. 40 (numbered from 127-166). Illustrated wrappers, bound with two staples. Spine torn but holding, some markings and soiling but overall a nice copy of a rare photo essay recording the last days of Berryessa Valley before the construction of the Montecello Dam and the flooding of the valley to create a twenty mile long reservoir. A entire, pastoral way of living was destroyed to provide a much needed irrigation system for agricultural land in the Sacramento Valley. Lange's elegiac images are moving and the sense of loss is palpable. But as one of the farmers affected says, at the end of the book: "This valley and this land was good to us, but the water over it will be good for the majority of the people. We have to think that way...."