Liebling, Jerome. The People, Yes by Jerome Liebling.

Aperture, 1995. Foreword by Carroll T. Hartwell. Introduction by Ken Burns. Hardcover, fine, first edition, first printing with fine protected dust jacket. Blind stamp of previous owner, Michael Lang, on front flyleaf. Retrospective of Liebling’s photographs over nearly 50 years.  Illustrations in both color and black and white.  Subjects of photographs include Native Americans; Miners; Shakers; Cadavers; Butchers; Handball Players; Mannequins; Portraits, et al. Includes chronology of Liebling’s life and career.

 Jerome Liebling (1924–2011) was an influential American documentary photographer, filmmaker, and professor celebrated for his humane, socially conscious portraits and studies of American life. Raised in Brooklyn by Jewish immigrant parents, Liebling served in the Army during World War II before studying art at Brooklyn College under Walter Rosenblum and Ad Reinhardt, where he absorbed both Bauhaus design principles and the social realism of the Photo League. He spent two decades establishing the photography program at the University of Minnesota—producing prominent documentary films and photographs of local workers, indigenous communities, and politicians—before moving in 1969 to Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, where he founded a renowned film and photography program and mentored future luminaries like filmmaker Ken Burns. Over a career spanning more than fifty years, Liebling captured striking monochrome and vivid color series documenting urban centers, the South Bronx, street life, and working-class figures, earning two Guggenheim Fellowships and cementing a legacy focused on revealing the dignity, struggle, and resilience of everyday people.

The People, Yes by Jerome Liebling is a powerful photographic monograph published by Aperture that gathers together more than 100 of the artist’s most compelling images from a career that spanned nearly fifty years. The book functions as both a retrospective of Liebling’s work and a visual meditation on the human condition, celebrating everyday life with depth, empathy, and visual clarity.

Rather than focusing on celebrity or spectacle, Liebling’s photographs document the ordinary courage and dignity of people, animals, and environments across a wide range of American experience—from the streets of 1940s New York City to quiet rural settings like Amherst, Massachusetts. His images range from scenes of a Shaker community and elderly handball players to portraits and environments that reflect the resilience and integrity of individuals facing life’s challenges.

The book’s title, taken from Carl Sandburg’s poetic epic, echoes Liebling’s humanistic vision: a belief in the essential value and strength of “the people” and their lives. Accompanied by stills from his documentary films and enriched with the photographer’s own notes, the work presents Liebling not just as a photographer but as a chronicler of everyday heroism—observing without sentimentality or judgment, and revealing the extraordinary in the ordinary.

An introduction by filmmaker Ken Burns and a foreword by Carroll T. Hartwell add context to Liebling’s approach and legacy, framing The People, Yes as both an artistic achievement and a tribute to one of the great teachers and practitioners of American photography.