Photographic Presidents: Making History from Daguerreotype to Digital Volume 1 (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780252085789)

Defining the Chief Executive via flash powder and selfie sticks

Lincoln's somber portraits. Lyndon Johnson's swearing in. George W. Bush's reaction to learning about the 9/11 attacks. Photography plays an indelible role in how we remember and define American presidents. Throughout history, presidents have actively participated in all aspects of photography, not only by sitting for photos but by taking and consuming them. Cara A. Finnegan ventures from a newly-discovered daguerreotype of John Quincy Adams to Barack Obama's selfies to tell the stories of how presidents have participated in the medium's transformative moments. As she shows, technological developments not only changed photography, but introduced new visual values that influence how we judge an image. At the same time, presidential photographs--as representations of leaders who symbolized the nation--sparked public debate on these values and their implications.

An original journey through political history, Photographic Presidents reveals the intertwined evolution of an American institution and a medium that continues to define it.

Author: Cara a. Finnegan
ISBN-10: 0252085787
ISBN-13: 9780252085789
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Language: English
Published: 05/18/2021
Pages: 296
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.10lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.80d

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 02/01/2021
Foreword 02/26/2021

About the Author
Cara A. Finnegan is a professor of communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is the author of Making Photography Matter: A Viewer's History from the Civil War to the Great Depression and Picturing Poverty: Print Culture and FSA Photographs.