Photography and the USA PDF
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Photography and the USA Mick Gidley Photography and the USA EXPOSURESis a series of books on photography designed to explore the rich history of the medium from thematic perspectives. Each title presents a striking collection of approximately80 images and an engaging, accessible text that offers intriguing insights into a specific theme or subject. Series editors: Mark Haworth-Booth and Peter Hamilton Also published Photography and Australia Helen Ennis Photography and Spirit John Harvey Photography and Cinema David Campany Photography and Literature François Brunet Photography and Science Kelley Wilder Photography and Flight Denis Cosgrove and William L. Fox Photography and Egypt Maria Golia Photography and Africa Erin Haney Photography and Italy Maria Antonella Pelizzari Photography and the USA Mick Gidley reaktion books To my grandchildren, Nathan, Seth and Ramona, trusting that you will one day enjoy both photography and the USA Published by Reaktion Books Ltd 33Great Sutton Street London ec1v 0dx www.reaktionbooks.co.uk First published 2011 Copyright © Mick Gidley 2011 All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers. Printed and bound in China British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Gidley, M. (Mick) Photography and the USA. – (Exposures) 1. Photography – United States 2. Social aspects –United States –History I. Title II Series. 770.9'73-dc22 isbn978 1 86189 770 1 Contents Introduction 7 one Technologies 31 two Histories 62 three Documents 99 four Emblems 131 References 166 Select Bibliography 172 Acknowledgements 176 Photo Acknowledgements 177 Index 178 No digital rights Introduction Folk Effects Photography and the usais written out of a conviction that – in ways both large and small – there has been a symbiotic connection between the medium of photography and the nation that has emerged as the world’s remaining superpower. In ways to be substantiated as we proceed, it is definitely the case that Americans have always been prominent in photog - raphy and, at least since the Second World War, have dominated the world image economy: the production, selection and transmission of photographic images of all kinds. And this has happened on such a scale that to some – including Roland Barthes in his essay on the American origins of ‘The Family of Man’ exhibition that was mounted in numerous venues around the globe during the 1950s – it has seemed that photog - raphy has served as an actual projection of the economic, political and ideological power of the usa.1Whether or not such a causal and one-to- one connection between the nation and the medium is justified, the link itself exists. That is, we are not speaking simply of photography inthe 1 Aerial view, looking northwest, of the usa– the emergence and development of the medium as an industry, Statue of Liberty, taken by Jack E. art and hobby – or of photography of the usa– the efforts, some of Boucher in 1978, with the then relatively them actually government-sponsored, as in the case of the frontispiece new twin towers of the World Trade Center on the horizon. This image image, to capture, record or commemorate the peoples, landscapes and is one of many in a sequence devoted ways of life of the nation – though, of course, both feature here. In the to Liberty as part of the documentation of significant engineering projects approach adopted, in the selection of topics for discussion and in the conducted by the Historic American analyses of specific images, the focus, indeed the stress, is on photog - Engineering Record (HAER) of the U.S. raphy and the usa. National Park Service, 7 No digital rights In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, before the u.s. 2 Untitled photo-collage by an unknown acquired the actual political, economic and military might of today, it maker, c. 1870, albumen print. already exerted marked ideological power. This was a period when both photography as practice and a plethora of photographic images were becoming ever more readily available to ordinary people. It was an ambience in which numerous photo-collages were produced. One cele- brated example comprises a group of 30blueprint photographs, mostly of landscape scenes, printed on cloth and sewn together to make a pillow. It is reminiscent of a patchwork quilt, a form of needlework that, in the u.s. at the time, was produced by individual women and, out of sociability, by 8
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