American Photographers: Photographic Contributions To The American Narrative From The Civil War To The Vietnam War

Research Paper

Mauldin 1

Deborah Mauldin Cara Simulevitz American Art History February 5, 2009 American Photographers: Photographic Contributions to the American Narrative from The Civil War to The Vietnam War In terms of the world timeline, the United States of America is a relatively young country. The same parallel exists for photography in the world of art and documentation. Despite their relative youth, the country and the medium have advanced so much so quickly that they both have become dominating elements in global life. Through the documentation of people, places and events American photographers and the images they created have played an assistive role in the development of the United States as a nation that governs itself. These photographers, through their work, have also served to bring a wider awareness of issues to the American public and as such have contributed to the national discourse that continuously works to shape American ideals and define what it means to be American. Cameras have become ubiquitous in the United States. People are everywhere taking pictures of anything that reflects light. Portraits are as common as the printed word, whether they are taken by a professional in a studio or they are taken of oneself at arms length. The very first portrait taken in the United States happens to be a self-portrait, made by Robert Cornelius, a lamp maker who caught the photography bug as soon as Louise Jacques Mandeʼ Daguerreʼs English publication of An Historical Account and a

Research Paper

Mauldin 2

Descriptive Account of the Various Processes of the Daguerreotype and the Diorama landed in America (American Philosophical Society).

Fig 1. Robert Cornelius, Self Portrait, 1839 (Library of Congress).

With the success of that first self-portrait, as well as other early attempts by Corneliusʼs contemporaries, American had officially entered into an era of photographic documentation. Marching onwards through American history, it is the Civil War that divides the nation and astonishes the populace out of any romantic reverie of what it is to fight in a war.

Fig 2. The Devilʼs Den, Matthew B. Brady (Library of Congress)

Research Paper

Mauldin 3

Matthew Brady was one instrument that dealt the astonishment with his “cumbersome darkrooms” and assistants that followed the Union army to document scenes of battle (Lane). This was truly Americaʼs first widespread and intimate view of the immediate cost of war. “Oliver Wendell Holmes, in seeing Brady's photos of just a few of the 5,000 killed and 18,000 wounded in a single day of fighting, commented he had the urge to bury the photos along with the dead” (Lane). These photographs elicited strong emotional reactions which clearly mark the beginning of how photographs entered into and affected the national consciousness. After the Civil War, the governmentʼs efforts at westward expansion led to discoveries of great natural spaces that have been preserved as national parks and monuments. Photography played no small role in these preservations.

Fig 3. Old Faithful, William Henry Jackson, 1870 (Getty Museum).

As Matthew B. Brady is synonymous with Civil War photography, so William Henry Jackson is synonymous with the images that made America and rest of the world aware of the great American West. His photographs taken during the government geological

Research Paper

Mauldin 4

survey expedition through the Wyoming Territory to the Yellowstone Lake area were the very first to be published of Yellowstone and were instrumental in convincing Congress to establish Yellowstone National Park, Americaʼs very first national park (Getty Museum). The Western Expansion continued on and other government directed surveys took place. These expeditions were conducted by teams led by military officers with the purpose of discovering and cataloguing the features and resources of the West. A tragic result of these explorations was the treatment that Native Americans of the area were given as the government and private industry asserted dominance over the area and its resources. Battles were fought between the Natives and the military, with the military eventually prevailing. Native American cultures went into decline and drastic change, but through the work of Edward S. Curtis an extensive illustrated record of over 80 tribes was created (Gidley).

Fig 4. Hipah with arrow-brush - Maricopa c. 1907, Edward S. Curtis (Library of Congress)

Research Paper

Mauldin 5

Curtis spent three decades on a massive anthropological effort to document the North American Indians. His efforts culminated in a limited edition 20 volume compendium of entitled “The North American Indian” of which the last volume was published in 1930 (Gidley). The history and details of the project being what they are, the project itself was an incredible contribution to the preservation of the details of these cultures as they were before the changes took place which have reshaped these cultures into their modern day forms. As the nation expanded westward, so did the ideals of the people. Back in Washington DC a photography studio was established by George Harris and Martha Ewing with the intent to bring “world-class civic portraiture and photojournalism” to the capitol (Shields). Harris and Ewing did much to bring the inner workings of Washington DC to the masses through their photojournalism. One of the more spectacular issues they covered was the womenʼs suffrage movement.

Fig 5. Women begin to assemble for the first national suffrage parade, Washington, D.C. Harris & Ewing. March 3, 1913 (Library of Congress).

Research Paper

Mauldin 6

Harris and Ewing devoted detailed attention to this movement. Their efforts contributed greatly to the photographic record made of the suffrage movement, including portraits of women who were sent to prison for their activities and associations with the National Womenʼs Party.

Fig 6. Miss [Lucy] Burns in Occoquan Workhouse, Washington, Harris & Ewing, Nov 1917 (Library of Congress

Moving on in American history we come to an era that is indelibly imprinted on the American psyche. The Great Depression wreaked havoc on the American economy and dealt great changes all across the nation. Individuals, families and entire communities were affected by these changes. President Roosevelt established a government office to oversee aid given to farmers who were migrating to the cities for work during this period (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information (FSA/OWI):Prints and Photographs Division). This office came to be known as the Farm Security Administration (FSA) for which many famous photographs are attributed to. Inside this administration was an activity devoted

Research Paper

Mauldin 7

to the documentation of the need for assistance. Photographers that worked for the FSA worked to document this need however their medium allowed them the ability to document total aspects of life. What resulted from their work there is an extensive library of photographs that document the daily activities of Americans affected by the Depression, the Dust Bowl, farm mechanization, and the preparations for World War II. Given the intimate nature of the photographic documentation and the demographic of the country at that time, there is also an extensive photographic reference of womenʼs lives and daily activities of the era. One of the best known images of this era comes from photographer Dorothea Lange in which viewers see the burden of a mother who is directly affected by the changes in the country at that time.

Fig 7. Migrant Mother, Dorothea Lange, 1936 (Library of Congress)

Research Paper

Mauldin 8

The transition from national poverty to national prosperity came at the price of all the devastation and loss of World War II. This next era in American history is a story of war on an epic scale where photographs were used in a myriad of different ways to support the war effort and the agenda of the government in running the country while running the war. Images of victory were priceless commodities because of the effect they had for national support of the war effort. One such image taken during the war has transcended the moment in which it was captured and has literally become a monument. The United States Marine Corps Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington DC is based off of an image a group of Marines and a Navy Corpsman planting the American flag on Mount Suribachi during the massive battle to gain control of the island of Iwo Jima away from the Japanese (Peters).

Fig 7. U.S. Marines raising the American flag over Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima, in February 1945.Joe Rosenthal/AP, (Encyclopedia Britannica Online)

Though World War II united the country in a common cause, there was still a divisive social practice that plagued the country. The practice of racial segregation ran so deep

Research Paper

Mauldin 9

that even during the war African Americans were segregated in the military. In 1957 efforts were made to desegregate a high school in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Fig 8. Will Countsʼs iconic photograph of Elizabeth Ann Eckford after she was denied entrance to Little Rock Central High School; September 4, 1957 (Arkansas History Commission).

Will Counts blended into the crowd and captured this image of Elizabeth Ann Eckford as she retreated from the school after being turned away by National Guard troops when trying to enroll. This image came to symbolize the tension of the desegregation efforts in 1957, due in no small part to the composition of a white woman jeering at a Eckford when the shutter snapped. The infamous image made an impact on the jeering woman, Hazel Bryan Massery. She has since apologized to Eckford and has appeared publicly with Eckford in support of racial reconciliation (Spence). As World War II united the country and pulled it from economic depression, so another war divided the country very deeply. The Vietnam war was incredibly unpopular at home and America was deeply divided by our involvement. College campuses played host to many demonstrations against the war, and an unfortunate history was made on May 4, 1970 at Kent State University.

Research Paper

Mauldin 10

After intense activity by protestors and local police in the previous days, the Ohio National Guard was called in to help local authorities handle the situation. Escalation between the Guardsmen and the crowd occurred and the Guardsmen opened fire on the crowd (Hensley and Lewis). Four students were killed, 13 were injured and a Pulitzer prize-winning photograph was taken by John Filo, a student majoring in photography at Kent State (Hensley and Lewis).

Fig 8. Image taken by John Filo at Kent State University, Kent Ohio, May 4, 1970 (The Digital Journalist)

This image has been printed and reprinted many times and the John Filo still holds the copyright today. It is utterly representative of the horror that this generation of protestors felt at the reality of the government killing itʼs own citizens and as such continues to resonate with viewers to this day. From the early fascination with daguerrotype portraits to the documentation of the social fabric of America, photographic images have become embedded in American history. As America progresses forward, the thinkers and doers of the country have strong visual references to depend on for their decisions and actions and as such owe much to

Research Paper

Mauldin 11

the photographers who continually work to make photographic record. These records will continue to add weight to the national discourse, which will in turn lead to events and outcomes needing documentation. As the country goes so go the photographs.

Research Paper

Mauldin 12 Works Cited

“100 Photographs that Changed the World by Life.” The Digital Journalist. 16 Feb

2009 .

Curtis, Edward. “cp02028.” Edward S. Curtis's The North American Indian: Photographic

Images. 16 Feb 2009
~ammem_CeRK::>.

“Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information (FSA/OWI):Prints and Photo

graphs Division.” American Memory from the Library of Congress. 16 Feb 2009

.

Gidley, Mick. “Edward S. Curtis (1868-1952) and The North American Indian.” American

Memory from the Library of Congress. 1 Jan 2001. 16 Feb 2009
memory.loc.gov/ammem/award98/ienhtml/essay1.html>.

Harris & Ewing. “Miss [Lucy] Burns in Occoquan Workhouse, Washington.” American

Memory from the Library of Congress. 16 Feb 2009




(NUMBER+@band(mnwp+274009))>.



Harris & Ewing. “Women, including those representing the states of Wisconsin and

Oregon, and delegations from Womans' clubs, assemble in first national suffrage

parade, Washington, D.C.” American Memory from the Library of Congress.

1913. 16 Feb 2009
(NUMBER+@band(mnwp+159007))>.

Research Paper

Mauldin 13

Hensley, Thomas, and Jerry Lewis. “The May 4 Shootings at Kent State University: The

Search for Historical Accuracy.” Kent State University. 1998. 16 Feb 2009

.

Jackson, William. “Old Faithful (Getty Museum).” Getty Museum. 1870. 16 Feb 2009

.

Lane, Jim. “Matthew B. Brady.” Humanities Web. 16 Jan 2009


www.humanitiesweb.org/human.php?s=h&p=a&a=i&ID=577>.

Lange, Dorothea. “Migrant Mother.” American Memory from the Library of Congress. 16

Feb 2009
temp/~ammem_hMxT::>.

Peters, James. “United States Marine Corps Memorial.” Arlington National Cemetery.

2000. 16 Feb 2009
iwo_jima_monument.html>.

“Photographs: Preserving the Nation's Heritage at the Library of Congress.” Library of

Congress. 16 Feb 2009. .

“Robert Cornelius daguerreotypes, 1839-1840.” American Philosophical Society. 2006.

16 Feb 2009 .

Rosenthal, Joe. “Iwo Jima: raising the American flag on Mount Suribachi :: World War II

(1939-45) .” Britannica Online Encyclopedia. Feb 1945. 16 Feb 2009


-raising-the-American-flag-over-Mount-Suribachi-Iwo>.

Research Paper

Mauldin 14

Shields, David. “Broadway Photographs.” Broadway Photographs, Art Photographs &

The American Stage 1900-1930. 16 Feb 2009
index.php?action=showPhotographer&id=72>.

Spencer, Jayne. “Life is more than a moment.” Indiana University. 16 Feb 2009

.

“Will Counts (1931–2001).” Encyclopedia of Arkansas. 16 Feb 2009


entry-detail.aspx?entryID=470>.



“Will Counts, 70; Noted for Little Rock Photo.” New York Times 10 Oct 2001. 16 Feb

2009
9404E6DF1F3CF933A25753C1A9679C8B63>.

“William Henry Jackson.” Getty Museum. 16 Feb 2009
gettyguide/artMakerDetails?maker=1889>.