Synopses & Reviews
In Doctored, Tanya Sheehan takes a new look at the relationship between photography and medicine in American culture from the nineteenth century to the present. Sheehan focuses on Civil War and postbellum Philadelphia, exploring the ways in which medical models and metaphors helped strengthen the professional legitimacy of the city’s commercial photographic community at a time when it was not well established. By reading the trade literature and material practices of portrait photography and medicine in relation to one another, she shows how their interaction defined the space of the urban portrait studio as well as the physical and social effects of studio operations. Integrating the methods of social art history, science studies, and media studies, Doctored reveals important connections between the professionalization of American photographers and the construction of photography’s cultural identity.
Synopsis
Examines the relationship between photography and medicine in American culture. Focuses on the American Civil War and postbellum Philadelphia to explore how medical models and metaphors helped establish the professional legitimacy of commercial photography while promoting belief in the rehabilitative powers of studio portraiture.
About the Author
Tanya Sheehan is Assistant Professor of Art History at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.
Table of Contents
ContentsList of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 Educating “Doctors of Photography”: Medical Models and the Institutionalization of Photographic Knowledge
2 Making Faces and Taking Off Heads: The Operations of Photography and Medicine
3 “Panes Curing Pains”: Light as Medicine in the Photographic Studio
4 A Matter of Public Health: Photographic Chemistry and the (Re)production of Healthy Bodies
5 Photo Doctors and Pixel Surgeons: The Medicine of Photography in the Digital Age
Appendix: Philadelphia Photographic Periodicals, 1864–1890
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index