Harvard Works Because We Do

by Greg Halpern (Photographer), Studs Terkel (Foreword by)

Overview

For two years before the April 2001 sit-in at Harvard on behalf of the blue-collar workers, Greg Halpern had been photographing them and recording their thoughts about their lives and work. The institution that didn't pay "living wages" —while collecting 5 million a day in interest on its endowment—had actually lowered the workers' pay in the months leading up to the confrontation. The personal accounts presented here are poignant and illuminating reminders of the wide disparity of circumstances that exist in this land of plenty. The photographs are stunning. 65 duotone photographs.

About the Author:
: Greg Halpern grew up in Buffalo, New York, and graduated from Harvard in 1999. He has spent the last three years interviewing and photographing cooks, custodians and other service workers at the University while working for the Harvard Living Wage Camapaign.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780971454897
Publisher:	Quantuck Lane Press
Publication date:	11/11/2003
Pages:	144
Product dimensions:	10.60(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.80(d)

Introduction

Terkel, Studs

Editorial Reviews

“A text that has a sense of narrative motion, a dramatic arc, the result is powerful and surprising. These photographs of Harvard workers are emotionally and skillfully direct.”

New York Times Book Review

One of the most hopeful and exhilarating books in recent years.

Studs Terkel

Here are words and pictures that offer their very own kind of higher education - sights and stories that tell of those whose daily labor enable the comfort and ease of others. Here, too, is the documentary tradition furthered with great dignity and thoughtfulness - a college’s student, then teacher, become its attentive, knowing witness - whose work, in this book, offers a morally and awake education that will give readers much pause, indeed.

Robert Cole

With stories in their own words alongside proud but weary and unsmiling portraits… Halpern puts a face on the daunting statistics facing America's minimum-wage workers, who must labor 80 hours a week to cover basic living expenses

Publishers Weekly

A Harvard University graduate, Halpern has been photographing the custodial, maintenance, and food service workers of Harvard for four years, and here he presents these photos with brief statements by those pictured. The honesty of these images and testimonials draws our attention to the campus's numerous inequities, as the words of the workers underscore the black-and-white documentary glimpses of them laboring on this Ivy League campus. Harvard, like any institution, would grind to a halt without its work force, yet many of its laborers earn well below living wages. By documenting this hidden subject, Halpern's book functions as a kind of social activism by giving voice and perspective to the unsung, underpaid workers at this elite university. Studs Terkel provides a strong introduction to this powerful book, which illustrates the camera's potential to bring about change. Recommended for all collections in photography or labor studies.-Shauna Frischkorn, Millersville Univ., PA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal