As early as 1930, Lucia Moholy (1894-1989) had the idea of ​​writing a "photo book" and began extensive research. She solved her claim to write a cultural-historical history of photography by embedding the prerequisites, developments and achievements of the new medium in a broad context of political, economic, technical, aesthetic, artistic and sociocultural contexts.
The publication was a commissioned work for the Penguin publishing house and appeared in the series of "Pelican Specials" initiated in 1937 in the format of about 18 x 11 cm, includes 182 pages and 35 of her selected photographs, on a smooth-coated paper as a block are integrated in the middle of the booklet. There are also some reproductions of engravings from magazines integrated in the text. The publisher's intention to launch a low priced, generally comprehensible photo story for a broad public on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of photography took hold: the circulation of 40,000 copies at six pence was sold out after a short time. Photography as mass product, to which it undoubtedly counted in 1939, corresponded to the medium it adopted, the paperback.

A Hundred Years of Photography 1839-1939, Lucia Moholy, Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin (ed.) 2016.

ISBN: 978-3922613589