A Last Glance: Trading Posts of the Four Corners. Este artículo no está disponible.A Last Glance: Trading Posts of the Four Corners

Starting in the 1870s, trading posts were where Native Americans interacted with the Anglo world, bartering wool, rugs, baskets, and other items they made for coffee, cooking oil, flour, and other goods they needed. The trading posts functioned not only as stores but also as post offices and general gathering places to become the defacto hubs of cultural exchange. Trade by barter largely ended in the 1930s. Today a few still function as trading posts and U.S. post offices, but many became convenience stores and gas stations while others were abandoned and fell prey to decay and vandalism. Some remain in part but only marked by a stray wall or foundation stone.

Since 1970 Ed Grazda has been searching for and photographing these buildings and in this book the reader is led on a tour showing those that are still functioning all the way to those that have succumbed to the ravages of time and neglect. Combining vintage photographs with more contemporary images of the same locations from 2008 to today,A Last Glancereminds us of the fascinating relationship and close exchange of culture that once existed between Native Americans and settlers and how each passing year makes its mark upon everything and our understanding and acceptance of our shared histories.

Edward Grazda was born in Queens, New York (1947), and got his BFA from RISD in 1969. He has photographed in the USA, Latin America, and Asia. Published books include: Afghanistan Diary 1992-2000 (2000), NY Masjid: The Mosques of New York (2002), A Last Glance: Trading Posts of the Four Corners (2015), Mean Streets: NYC 1970-1985 (2017), and On the Bowery: NYC 1971 (2019)–all from powerHouse Books. Grazda's work is in the collections of the MoMA, The Met, New York Public Library, and SFMoMA in San Francisco. He has taught at Harvard, Boston Musuem School and the International School of Photography (ICP) in New York City. Once a proud denizen of Bleecker Street (photographer's row), he now lives in Chilmark, MA and Providence, RI.