A historian‘s selection of photographs, taken of the small town of Black River Falls, Wisconsin and its inhabitants between the years of 1885 and 1900. Lesy pairs the photos with articles taken from the town newspaper, chronicling countless accounts of the eerie, dismal and shocking. This is a photo essay/compendium that shows the malaise of rural America entering modernity, a book garnering a cult-like following ever since its 1973 publication.