How Did Photography Shape Public Reactions to the American Civil War?

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Criteria A: Plan of Investigation
This investigation asks the question "How did photography shape public reactions to the American Civil War?” The investigation will take into account the leading photographers’ works of the time, such as Matthew Brady and Alexander Gardner, and how the public responded to the images that were shared and what value the images had. It will assess the public reaction by looking at press publications similar to those of The New York Times and Harper's Weekly. Publications such as these evaluated the galleries of the artists what they provided for the viewers. The value of the photographs to today's historians is also taken into account.

Criteria B: Summary of Evidence
During the Civil War, many Americans wanted more than written descriptions of the epic battle in eastern Pennsylvania. They craved visual records- photographs of the fields where so many brave men, northerners and southerners alike, had fallen (Nardo 4). The press thrilled readers with its written descriptions of the exploits of these larger-than-life characters. But the average person knew little of a personal nature about them, including what they looked like (Nardo 45). [The photographs] provided a way for the people to see such living legends up close, to look them in the eye, so to speak, and get a glimpse of their humanity (Nardo 45).
Though the photographers would often stage their photographs, they are still witness to real events (Trachtenberg 73). What the photograph depicted originated, as everyone understood, in the world itself, not in the imagination-even if objects must be moved to realize the photographer’s intention (Trachtenberg 83). It defined and perhaps even helped unify the nation through an unrehearsed and uns...

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...Fava and Leah W. Jewett. Civil War Book Review. N.p., Winter 2003. Web. 25 Mar. 2014. .
Lee, Anthony W., and Elizabeth Young. On Alexander Gardner's Photographic Sketch Book of the Civil War. Berkeley: University of California, 2007. Print.
Stille, Darlene R. The Civil War through Photography. Chicago, IL: Heinemann Library, 2013. Print.
Rosenheim, Jeff L. Photography and the American Civil War:. New Haven: Yale Univ., 2013. Print.
Widmer, Ted. "Cameristas." Opinionator Cameristas Comments. The New York Times, 2 May 2013. Web. 25 Mar. 2014. .
Sandler, Martin W. America Through the Lens: Photographers Who Changed the Nation. New York: Henry Holt and, 2005. Print.

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