19th century print culture final study guide

Illustrated journal

a personal, visual diary that blends writing with drawings, sketches, collages, photos, and found objects to document life, thoughts, and experiences creatively, acting as a hybrid between a traditional diary and a scrapbook (ex. Harper’s Weekly)

News from the War

popular 19th century American journal, provided extensive illustrated news coverage of the Civil War with sketches, maps, and reports, featuring artists like Winslow Homer and cartoonists like Thomas Nast, bringing battlefield events, politics, and daily life to Union readers, influencing public opinion and documenting the conflict's visual history

Reconstruction

turbulent era after the U.S. Civil War focused on rebuilding the South, reintegrating Confederate states, and defining the rights of nearly four million newly freed African Americans

Transcontinental Railroad

the first continuous rail line connecting the Eastern U.S. to the Pacific Coast, dramatically reducing travel time, fueling westward expansion, economic growth, and industrialization, while profoundly impacting Native American lands and cultures

Geological survey

a detailed and systematic study of the topography, geology, and mineral resources of an area or country

Mammoth print

photo printed with ~15x20in. dimensions

U.S./Mexican Boundary Survey

land survey that took play from 1848 to 1855 to determine the Mexico–United States border as defined in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, spearheaded by the U.S. Geological Survey to classify federal lands, support resource management (mining, water supply, railroads), and understand the terrain for development and conservation

Catastrophism

the theory that changes in the earth's crust during geological history have resulted chiefly from sudden violent and unusual events

Uniformitarianism

the geological principle that the same natural laws and processes (like erosion, sedimentation, volcanic activity) operating today have always operated throughout Earth's history, just at consistent rates

Itinerant peddler

traveling merchant/seller who moved from place to place, widely identified as major sources of instability, associated with trickery and unreliability, embodied the centrifugal energies of market exchange

Idioms of control

critical components in the process of stabilizing "the sorcery of the market" and defining a communicative and plainspoken autonomous self within the nineteenth century cultural landscape, included sincerity (defense against market evasions and corruption), rationality (part of the effort to impose rational structures to quiet moral or epistemological doubts), and mimesis (honest representation, idea that art/representation must directly mirror reality, was meant to relieve the tensions created by market exchange by creating morally reassuring surfaces)

Trade card

like a business card, could pick up from a business or salesman, raised awareness of business identity, like a carte de visite for businesses

Plate glass

Glass windows used by businesses/storefronts to advertise on through painting words/images on it

Fat face type

specific 19th century type of typeface, puts a lot of emphasis on the words

Dry goods

grocery items that do not contain liquid and textiles/ready to wear clothing

Department store

a large store stocking many varieties of goods in different departments

Taylorism

management theory developed by Frederick Winslow Taylor that aims to increase economic efficiency by analyzing and optimizing work processes

Alienated labor

the alienation from the product of one’s own labor, the disconnection workers experience under capitalism from their work, the products they create, their fellow workers, and their own human potential

Professional class

a social group of highly educated individuals in specialized, white collar jobs (like doctors, lawyers, managers) who form part of the upper middle class, distinguished by advanced training, higher incomes, and critical roles in the economy

Physical culture

a health and strength training movement that originated during the 19th century, the systematic care and development of the physique through various physical activities and regimens

Stop action photography

using a very fast shutter speed to freeze fast moving subjects, capturing details otherwise invisible to the naked eye (Eakins, Muybridge)

Phenakistoscope

used a spinning disc with slits and a mirror for one viewer to see animated images

Zoetrope

19th century optical toy consisting of a cylinder with a series of pictures on the inner surface that, when viewed through slits with the cylinder rotating, give an impression of continuous motion

Zoopraxiscope

optical toy used to project images to a group by using large glass discs with sequential images (often photographic) to project motion onto a wall

Collotype

NOT calotype (camera to paper negative process), photomechanical print process for mass reproduction by transferring photo to print, used by Muybridge, process involves exposing a light sensitive gelatin layer under a photographic negative, where the hardened areas repel ink while the unhardened areas attract it

Realism

the movement and style focused on truthfully, accurately, and objectively depicting the ordinary world, everyday life, and common people, rejecting the idealization, emotion, and drama of Romanticism

Persistence of vision

the optical illusion where the eye retains an image for a fraction of a second after the light source disappears, occurs with zoetropes

Recidivism

the tendency of a convicted criminal to reoffend

Halftone

an image reproduced using dots of varying size or spacing to simulate continuous tones, creating an optical illusion where the eye blends the dots into smooth gradients, process involves an image broken into a grid of various levels of tone

Composite photograph

a photograph made by overlapping or juxtaposing two or more separate images

Honorific representation

the “ideal self”, designed to display the self in a ceremonial context, examples include portraying individuals, typically elite or respected figures, in a manner that emphasizes their dignity, status, and contribution to society

Repressive representation

the “deviant other”, serves to establish and delimit the terrain of the “other”, examples include Bertillon’s and Galton’s system of documenting prisoners

Bertillon system

developed by Alphonse Bertillon, was a comprehensive system of criminal identification in the 19th century, used anthropometrics (measuring parts of the human body) and portraits to organize individual criminal records in a filing system

Galton system

Developed by Francis Galton in the 19th century, used composite photography to layer portraits of criminals to help predict and identify repeat offenders/”bad” people, involved eugenics, used a sophisticated filing system

Social documentation

the systematic recording and archiving of human activities, cultures, and social phenomena

Photo essay

a series of photographs that tells a story or conveys a specific message, with the images arranged in a particular order to create a visual narrative

Tenement

crowded, low quality apartment buildings, especially common in cities like New York during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, housing poor immigrants and workers in harsh, unsanitary conditions, leading to public health crises

Industrial exposition

a large scale public exhibition or show of industrial and manufactured products, often designed to promote trade, stimulate public interest in innovation, and reflect technological and cultural progress

Commodity fetishism

the economic and social phenomenon where the social relationships involved in production are obscured and appear as relationships between the commodities themselves, rather than between the people who produce them

Vitrine

a glass showcase or cabinet especially for displaying fine wares or specimens

Simulacra

copies or representations that depict things that either had no original or are an exaggerated version of an original (ex. rack paintings, Campbell’s soup)

Midway Plaisance

a milelong public park in Chicago, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted as a grand pleasure ground connecting Washington and Jackson Parks, famous for becoming the entertainment zone of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition

Trompe l’oeil

an artistic term for the highly realistic optical illusion of three dimensional space and objects on a two dimensional surface

Rack picture

Painting of a wall with things tacked onto it, like a cubicle wall

Memento mori

an object serving as a warning or reminder of death, such as a skull

Operational aesthetic

observing and analyzing the inner workings and processes of technology, media, and narratives

Conspicuous consumption

expenditure on or consumption of luxuries on a lavish scale in an attempt to enhance one's prestige

Cinema of attractions

early filmmaking (pre 1906) focused on direct audience engagement through visual spectacle, novelty, and display, rather than narrative absorption, breaking the "fourth wall" with direct address to the camera to create wonder and surprise

Actuality film

a short, unedited, non fiction film from the early days of cinema that captures real life events, places, or people without any narrative structure

Trick film

early cinema's innovative visual illusions and special effects, using in camera techniques like stop motion, double exposure, and substitution splices to make impossible things happen (like disappearances or transformations) for entertainment

Nickelodeon

an early type of entertainment venue, specifically a theater or cinema, that typically charged an admission fee of a nickel

Alexander Gardner, President Lincoln at Antietam, 1862 (albumen print)

Timothy O’Sullivan, Harvest of Death, 1863 (albumen print)

Winslow Homer, The Bright Side, 1865

Winslow Homer, “War News Illustrated,” Harper’s Weekly, 1862 (electrotype)

Winslow Homer, Veteran in a New Field, 1865

Albert Bierstadt, Rocky Mountains, Lander’s Peak, 1863

Eadweard Muybridge, Valley of the Yosemite, 1872 (albumen print)

Thomas Moran, Chasm of the Colorado, 1872

Arthur Schott, View from Monument XVIII, Report on the US and Mexico Boundary Survey, 1857 (engraving)

Timothy O’Sullivan, Tufa Domes, 1867 (albumen print)

Timothy O’Sullivan, Sand Dunes, 1867 (albumen print)

Eastman Johnson, The New Bonnet, 1876

Lily Martin Spencer, Kiss Me and You’ll Kiss the Lasses, 1856

Charter Oak Lawn Mower, 1880 (chromolithograph trade card)

“John Wanamaker’s Clothing House on Market Street,” in James McCabe, 1876 (engraving)

“Barnum’s Museum,” in Julio Rae, 1851 (lithograph)

Thomas Anschutz, Ironworkers’ Noontime, 1881

Thomas Eakins, Lady with a Setter, 1885

Thomas Eakins, The Gross Clinic, 1875

Thomas Eakins, Max Schmitt in a Single Scull, 1871

Thomas Eakins, The Swimming Hole, 1883

Harriet Hosmer, Sleeping Faun, 1870

Eadweard Muybridge, Female Figure Hopping, Animal Locomotion, 1887 (collotype)

Eadweard Muybridge, Male Figures Boxing, Animal Locomotion, 1887 (collotype)

Thomas Eakins, Double Jump, 1885 (gelatin silver print)

Bertillon exhibit, Columbian Exposition, 1893

Bertillon card, San Diego, 1913

Criminals convicted of murder, in Francis Galton Criminal Composites, 1878 (composite photographs)

Alice Austen, Bootblacks, 1896 (gelatin silver print)

Thomas Barnardo’s Stepney Boys’ Home, 1870 (albumen prints)

Jacob Riis, Upstairs in Blindman's Alley, How the Other Half Lives, 1890 (halftone and gelatin silver print)

Jacob Riis, Five Cents Lodging, How the Other Half Lives, 1890

Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, “Balloon View of the Grounds,” Harper’s Weekly, 1876

Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, Main Building (interior), Harper’s Weekly, 1876

Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, Frank Furness, Brazil pavilion, Harper’s Weekly, 1876

Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, Medicinal preparations, Harper’s Weekly, 1876

William Michael Harnett, Still Life, Violin and Music, 1888

John Haberle, Reproduction, 1886

John Frederick Peto, Office Board, 1888

John Frederick Peto, Old Souvenirs, 1901

Princess tonic hair restorer, Sears Roebuck & Co. Catalogue, 1897

Ladies’ gold filled watches, Sears Roebuck & Co. Catalogue, 1900