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EXPOSING HUMANITY:
SLAVERY, ANTISLAVERY, AND EARLY PHOTOGRAPHY IN AMERICA,
1839-1865
by
Matthew Amato
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(HISTORY)
August 2013
Copyright 2013 Matthew Amato
Object Description
| Title | Exposing humanity: slavery, antislavery, and early photography in America, 1839-1865 |
| Author | Amato, Matthew |
| Author email | amatom@usc.edu;mamato12@gmail.com |
| Degree | Doctor of Philosophy |
| Document type | Dissertation |
| Degree program | History |
| School | College of Letters, Arts And Sciences |
| Date defended/completed | 2013-05-15 |
| Date submitted | 2013-07-29 |
| Date approved | 2013-07-29 |
| Restricted until | 2015-07-29 |
| Date published | 2015-07-29 |
| Advisor (committee chair) | Fox, Richard W. |
| Advisor (committee member) |
Braudy, Leo Halttunen, Karen Schwartz, Vanessa R. |
| Abstract | My dissertation illuminates the earliest major episode in the continuing use of photography in struggles over social justice. While studies of early photography in the United States have amply shown that the new medium developed into a wildly popular visual practice that broadened the market for portraits, pictured the urban landscape, and visualized war, I show how it actually played a far more important role as a historical force: it reshaped how slavery and freedom were documented, imagined, and contested. More specifically, I assess how photography helped southerners to defend slavery, slaves to shape their social ties, abolitionists to strengthen their movement, and soldiers to imagine and pictorially enact an interracial society during the Civil War. Central to my analysis are dozens of little-studied and unpublished photographs of slaves, ex-slaves, and abolitionists – which I use in concert with written materials ranging from slave narratives, newspapers, and photographic journals to the personal papers of slaveholders, abolitionists, soldiers, and photographers. Ultimately, I argue that slave owners, enslaved people, abolitionists, and soldiers transformed photography from a scientific curiosity (in the early 1840s) into a political tool (by the 1860s). I further argue that photography served as a crucial yet largely unrecognized catalyst of sectional antagonism. While this project sheds new light on conflicts over late American slavery, it also reveals a key moment in the much broader historical relationship between modern visual culture and racialized forms of power and resistance. |
| Keyword | slavery; antislavery; photography; Civil War |
| Language | English |
| Format (imt) | application/pdf |
| Part of collection | University of Southern California dissertations and theses |
| Publisher (of the original version) | University of Southern California |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
| Provenance | Electronically uploaded by the author |
| Type | texts |
| Legacy record ID | usctheses-m |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Rights | Amato, Matthew |
| Physical access | The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the author, as the original true and official version of the work, but does not grant the reader permission to use the work if the desired use is covered by copyright. It is the author, as rights holder, who must provide use permission if such use is covered by copyright. The original signature page accompanying the original submission of the work to the USC Libraries is retained by the USC Libraries and a copy of it may be obtained by authorized requesters contacting the repository e-mail address given. |
| Repository name | University of Southern California Digital Library |
| Repository address | USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 7002, 106 University Village, Los Angeles, California 90089-7002, USA |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Filename | etd-AmatoMatth-1871.pdf |
| Archival file | uscthesesreloadpub_Volume7/etd-AmatoMatth-1871.pdf |
Description
| Title | Page 1 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Full text | EXPOSING HUMANITY: SLAVERY, ANTISLAVERY, AND EARLY PHOTOGRAPHY IN AMERICA, 1839-1865 by Matthew Amato A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (HISTORY) August 2013 Copyright 2013 Matthew Amato |
