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By Kurt Vidmer

Historiography

For our historiography project, Group C chose to focuses primarily on the impacts of early American photography. With technological advancement in the field of photography in the mid nineteenth century, photography became of much more integral part of society. My particular area of focus for my historiography is the role of photography during the Civil War. Being the first major war where photography was readily available and accessible, the Civil War truly was groundbreaking for wartime photography. This changed the way in which the public viewed war from the home front. In todays worlds, there is constant a constant media presence in war type environments, giving the public first hand accounts, images, and videos from the battlefield and base camps. The first hand accounts of war to people at home were born through the role of Photography in the Civil War.

The sources that I chose to analyze all span different themes of photography’s role during the Civil War. My first Source is a book review by Alan Trachtenberg, on the book Traces of War: Poetry, Photography, and the Crisis of the Union, written by Timothy Sweet. This review focuses on the role of the fine arts, including photography on bringing the war to light for people who were not directly involved in battle. My second source is a book Images of Civil War Medicine : A Photographic History: Containing Numerous Previously Unpublished Photographs of Surgeons, Nurses, Hospitals, and Other Facilities Used During the Civil War, written by Gordon Dammann and Alfred J. Bollet. This book deals specifically with the medical history of the Civil War. In this work, there are numerous pictures of various medically involved persons and places, and it outlines the importance of the pictures in crating a real life image of the medical experiences throughout the war. My third source comes from the book Life in Civil War America by Michael J. Varhola. This book deals with almost all aspects of life during the Civil War, and there is a chapter dedicated to the role of photography throughout the war. This gives a good outline of the origins and role that photography played throughout the war.

The book review of Traces of War: Poetry, Photography, and the Crisis of the Union give the readers a very detailed description and insight on how photography impacted other areas of post war art and expression. Figures such as Melville, Barnes, and Whitman were all authors who had many war inspired works (Trachtenberg). All of these men either directly participated in the war, or had close family who did, giving them strong insight into the realities that it caused for not only soldiers, but also families and citizens affected by the war. The poems and works that these authors wrote based on war experiences have largely been compared to Civil War photography (Trachtenberg). As said in the review, “picture or poem pastoralism wins its point by interdicting all traces of war”(Trachtenberg). This stays consistent with the theme that photography truly did highlight all aspects of War, and enabled photographers and newspapers to bring the realities of it back home. This review gives readers strong insight into the affect that Civil War photography, along with other artistic works had on society, and was groundbreaking in bringing the war home.

Images of Civil War Medicine : A Photographic History: Containing Numerous Previously Unpublished Photographs of Surgeons, Nurses, Hospitals, and Other Facilities Used During the Civil War, deals a bit less with the specific role of photography, but more importantly deals primarily with the role of medical involvement throughout the war. Whether it be ambulances, surgical procedures, or field hospitals, the Union medical war system during the Civil war was the first of its kind, and had strong affects on the war (Dammann and Bollet). This strongly related to photography because it was largely the photographs at these field hospitals that resonated to strongly with the people on the home front (Dammann and Bollet). This book contains pictures of amputation surgeries taking place, as well as field camps with piles of human limbs outside of operating rooms. In society today, we still often hear of examples of this and there are pictures of this in almost every history textbook. It is because of this Civil War photography that this is still spoken about today. As said before, a large impact of Civil War photography was how it fully brought about the horrors of war, and many of these horrors were exposed in the military hospitals and medical bases.

My third source, Life in Civil War America, gives a much more detailed history of Civil War photography. The origions of this can be largely traced back to Mathew Brady, a prominent studio photographer from New York (Varhola). Brady received Permission from Abraham Lincoln to bring photographers and reporters to the front lines, and sold Lincoln on the importance of documenting the War (Varhola). This began the expansion of Civil War photography, and many other photographers followed his lead. As far as photographical tactics went, many of the pictures from the Civil War were stages, as the cameras required longer to capture an image (Varhola). This article book also brought an interesting point about photography as fundraising. A large way that Civil War photography received its funding was through the sale of war photographs (Varhola). Families and collectors cherished these works, and the sales of these pieces were vital for Union fundraising efforts. This book does an excellent job of giving details of how the photographical evidence taken from the Civil War was the first of its kind.

All of my three sources offered a unique perspective on Civil War photography, and its impact on the future of the role of the media in future American Wars.

Work Cited

Dammann, Gordon, and Alfred J. Bollet. 2008. Images of Civil War Medicine : A Photographic History: Containing Numerous Previously Unpublished Photographs of Surgeons, Nurses, Hospitals, and Other Facilities Used During the Civil War. New York: Demos, 2008. eBook Academic Collection (EBSCOhost), EBSCOhost (accessed April 22, 2015).

Trachtenberg, Alan. Traces of War: Poetry, Photography, and the Crisis of the Union. by Timothy Sweet. Review. American Literature, Vol. 64, No. 1 (Mar., 1992), pp. 164-166.

Varhola, Michael J. Life in Civil War America (2nd Edition). Cincinnati, OH, USA: F+W Media, Inc., 2011. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 21 April 2015.