On Alexander Gardner's Photographic Sketch Book of the Civil War (Defining Moments in American Photography) [Paperback]

Anthony W. Lee (Author), Elizabeth Young (Author)

Book Description

Series: Defining Moments in American Photography | Publication Date: January 5, 2008

Soon after Alexander Gardner's Photographic Sketch Bookwas published, in 1866, it became the Civil War's best-known visual record and helped define how viewers, then and in subsequent generations, would come to know the war. Gardner's classic also became foundational in the history of American photography, combining, for the first time, words and images in a sophisticated and moving account. This book, written by the art historian Anthony W. Lee and the literary scholar Elizabeth Young, interprets the story of the war as told by Gardner, unraveling his careful choice of words and images and the complicated play between them, and understanding them against the backdrop of the literary and photographic cultures of the American antebellum and Reconstruction eras. This book presents a unique study of a pivotal American historical document, approaching it from the perspective of visual studies as well as American literature and history.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Art historian Lee (Picturing Chinatown) and literary scholar Young (Disarming the Nation) deconstruct the work of Alexander Gardner's seminal 1866 book of Civil War photos in separate, short essays. Soon after its publication, Gardner's work became "the first book to rely so heavily on pictures for its meanings," as Hay notes in the book's introduction. Lee focuses on the images in his essay, "The Image of War," and Young on the words or "sketches" in "Verbal Battlefields." Hay offers a comparison to other photographers' war work, concentrating on Gardner's "commitment to the limited view and the celebration of vignette over narrative." Young offers interpretations of Gardner's images and words on several topics, including African Americans and President Lincoln. The book, Young contends, is "strongly shaped by racially marked character and metaphors." The written sketches "offer alternative literary vocabularies that throw the dynamics of racial hierarchy-including its erotic connotations-into exaggerated relief, if not also providing narrative templates for their possible reversal." As those words indicate, the essays are heavily academic and make for edifying, if less than electrifying, reading.
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From the Inside Flap

"Lee and Young have admirably elucidated this foundational volume in the history of American photography by developing references that emerge from prior readings of these images, as well as thoughtfully producing new ways of seeing the landscapes Gardner presents. The book makes available to a wide audience one of the most important photographic records of any war and certainly the most interesting visual record of the American Civil War. This is superior scholarship."--Shirley Samuels, author of Facing America: Iconography and the Civil War

"Anthony Lee and Elizabeth Young's deceptively slim volume is a complex, enlightening, and elegant study of a significant Civil War-era document that also greatly enhances our understanding of nineteenth-century visual culture. The analysis and format of this collaborative effort will serve as a model for cultural scholarship for years to come."--Joshua Brown, author of Beyond the Lines: Pictorial Reporting, Everyday Life, and the Crisis of Gilded Age America

"In this beautifully written analysis of one of the most important works of nineteenth-century American photography, Lee and Young restore Gardner's Sketch Book to its rightful place as a key document of American history. At once a report of a newsworthy event and a meditation on its historical meaning, Gardner's album is less unmediated reportage than a carefully constructed argument. In clear, lucid prose, Lee and Young help us understand just how Gardner made this work that helped fix the Civil War in American memory."--Martha A. Sandweiss, author of Print the Legend: Photography and the American West

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; 1 edition (January 5, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520253310
• ISBN-13: 978-0520253315
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #205,328 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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