introduction by jack kerouac there is no question that robert franks the americans is the most famous and influential photography book ever published it was 1959 when the book first came out a series of deceptively simple photographs that frank took on a trip through america in 55 and 56 pictures of normal people everyday scenes lunch counters bus depots cars and the stangely familiar faces of people we dont quite know but have seen somewhere they are pictures that saw the american way of life as we hadnt yet quite been able to see it ourselves photographs that condensed the entire life of a nation in classic images that still speak to us today forty years and several generations later