Photographs shape not only what we remember but also how we remember. Picturing the Past explores the relations between photojournalism and history. Its contributors discuss dramatic changes in the American press's coverage of presidential death from McKinley through Kennedy and the curious distillation of enormous collections of photographs taken during cataclysmic events such as the Civil War and the Holocaust into a handful of images that have become cultural icons. Ranging from the idealization of American life in 1930s photojournalism to the issue of authenticity in documentary photography, these thought-provoking essays examine how photographs influence collective memory, generate a sense of national community, and reinforce the prevailing social, cultural, and political values.
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/bonnie_brennen/74/
Table of Contents
Introduction
1. Newswork, History, and Photographic Evidence: A Visual
Analysis of a 1930s Newsroom 11
2. Fact, Public Opinion, and Persuasion: The Rise of the Visual
in Journalism and Advertising
3. The President Is Dead: American News Photography and
the New Long Journalism
4. Reflections on an Editor
5. From the Image of Record to the Image of Memory:
Holocaust Photography, Then and Now
6. The Great War Photographs: Constructing Myths of
History and Photojournalism
7. Objective Representation: Photographs as Facts
8. Fact, Fiction, or Fantasy: Canada and the War to End
All Wars
9. The Family of Man: Readings of an Exhibition
10. Photographing Newswork: From the Archives of the
New York World-Telegram & Sun
Contributors
Index