Archives of the Machine Age: Charles Reznikoff’s <i>Testimony. The United States (1885-1915): Recitative</i>

The article examines the ways in which American Objectivist poet Charles Reznikoff (1894–1976) rewrites and compiles excerpts from US archival legal records his epic-like Testimony. United States (1885–1915): Recitative (published 1965 to 1978) so as represent social economic changes, particularly within context of industrial accidents child labor, during late phase Industrial Revolution America. As is argued, poet’s often uncritically accepted assertion that ‘recitatives’ he engages with depositions authentic witnesses given a court law an unbiased, objective manner not confirmed either close reading or juxtaposition particular fragments book original documentary material on they are based.