Death Trip was, on the surface, a benign album of seemingly ordinary photographs-portraits, patriotic displays, happy youth-from one small town in Wisconsin, Black River Falls, during the last decade of the 19th century. History’s like that, sometimes, our faith in the forward motion of chronology suddenly evaporating. It began as a staple-bound pamphlet and as a book became an unlikely mirror of its moment, even as it depicted the last 15 years of the previous century. Also in 1973, a book appeared called Wisconsin Death Trip. In 1973-the same year the US Supreme Court decided 7–2 that Norma McCorvey, “Jane Roe,” had a constitutional “right to privacy” that included reproductive freedom-tennis champion Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs in the televised “Battle of the Sexes.” Richard Nixon declared, “I am not a crook.” Henry Kissinger won a Nobel Peace Prize. Wade, and Wisconsin became the only “blue” state in which abortion is now effectively illegal. The next morning, the ruling came down: Dobbs v. I read on my phone, on Twitter, that Wisconsin Republicans had blocked an effort to repeal a dormant 1849 law making any abortion-including for rape or incest-a felony. They sped away, leaving me in the green light.

“Careful,” they said, and, “We’ll come back for you,” because they didn’t want to linger. What was the coffin though? I was visiting friends in Cecil, Wisconsin, when we drove past it. The cities and towns still ripple with rainbow pride, their numbers are greater, but on many country roads the ugly emblems tick by like mile markers. There’s new folk art too: handpainted “Fuck Biden” placards, homemade “Let’s Go Brandon” billboards, and DIY “Never Forget Benghazi” banners. Trump 2024, two years ahead of time and the red, white, and blue of the Confederacy, the yellow “Don’t Tread on Me” Gadsden. Not the American ones but the Trump ones. Halloween in June, or a sign? Kitsch, or a warning? I’d been driving for a week, since the first night of the January 6 hearings, listening to them on the radio as I counted the flags.

I went back twice to find out what the coffin meant, but though cars came and went in the driveway, nobody ever answered the door. “The thing to worry about is meanings, not appearances.” -Michael Lesy, Wisconsin Death Trip, 1973 Cecil, Wisconsin

Wisconsin death trip by michael lesy