<P> Many other noteworthy reactions, both positive and negative, have been proffered in social / cultural studies and as part of artistic and historical texts . The earliest critics of the show were, ironically, photographers, who felt that Steichen had downplayed individual talent and discouraged the public from accepting photography as art . The show was the subject of an entire issue of Aperture; "The Controversial' Family of Man"' Walker Evans disdained its "human familyhood (and) bogus heartfeeling" Phoebe Lou Adams complained that "If Mr. Steichen's well - intentioned spell doesn't work, it can only be because he has been so intent on (Mankind's) physical similarities that...he has utterly forgotten that a family quarrel can be as fierce as any other kind ." </P> <P> Some critics complained that Steichen merely transposed the magazine photo - essay from page to museum wall; in 1955 Rollie McKenna likened the experience to a ride through a funhouse, while Russell Lynes in 1973 wrote that Family of Man "was a vast photo - essay, a literary formula basically, with much of the emotional and visual quality provided by sheer bigness of the blow - ups and its rather sententious message sharpened by juxtaposition of opposites--wheat fields and landscapes of boulders, peasants and patricians, a sort of' look at all these nice folks in all these strange places who belong to this family ."' Jacob Deschin, photography critic for The New York Times, wrote, "the show is essentially a picture story to support a concept and an editorial achievement rather than an exhibition of photography ." </P> <P> From an optic of struggle, echoing Barthes, Susan Sontag in On Photography accused Steichen of sentimentalism and oversimplification:'...they wished, in the 1950s, to be consoled and distracted by a sentimental humanism . (...) Steichen's choice of photographs assumes a human condition or a human nature shared by everybody ." Directly quoting Barthes, without acknowledgement, she continues; "By purporting to show that individuals are born, work, laugh, and die everywhere in the same way, "The Family of Man" denies the determining weight of history - of genuine and historically embedded differences, injustices, and conflicts .' </P> <P> Others attacked the show as an attempt to paper over problems of race and class, including Christopher Phillips, John Berger, and Abigail Solomon - Godeau . Many of these critics, it should be noted, had not viewed the exhibition but were working from the published catalogue which notably excludes the image of the atomic explosion . </P>

Which statements are true regarding the family of man exhibition