On the Waterfront
Norwood, MN
Two cabinet cards from Norwood, MN
Back in Minnesota briefly; another trip soon. Pictures in the same old place.
Tainted with Vulgarity
All discourse about photography takes on the artificial air of an exercise in rhetoric, because feelings or tastes are being engaged without being applied to their proper objects. Since it has not been properly socially consecrated, photography can only be granted value at the whim of each viewer, who, because he likes it and not because it is imposed by cultural propriety, may decide to promote it, as if in a game and in the space of a moment, to the status of an art object.
Thus, dedication to photography can only be maintained insofar as consecrated activities, like going to concerts or the theatre, museums or art cinemas, do not compete with it or devalue it. It follows that senior executives in Paris, who, as we know, play a greater part in cultural activities, practice photography much less often than senior executives in Lille. Similarly, while a higher proportion of the children of senior executives take photographs during childhood, the proportion who then go on to engage in an intense and fervent practice is smaller than it is among the children of clerical workers and junior executives.
Thus, out of a population of literature students, the proportion of photographers is always greater among the children of clerical workers and junior executives than senior executives, the reverse of what we observe with regard to the most consecrated cultural behavior (apart from membership in film societies). Similar competitive phenomena may be noted in other areas: if the proportion of television owners is barely higher among senior executives (35.8 percent), despite the differences in income, than among junior executives (31.5 percent), if ownership of a record player and ownership of a television are mutually exclusive, and if senior executives are keen to point out that they use television only selectively, this is doubtless because consecrated practices devalue less prestigious practices, and perhaps also because members of the upper class seek to distance themselves from distractions which are tainted with vulgarity by their very diffusion.
Pierre Bourdieu, Photography: A Middle-brow Art (1965), p. 65-66
Hitting the Road
Popular Photography August 1938
Hitting the road on yet another Midwestern tour. Perhaps there will be snaps from the road.
Vacation
Popular Photography August 1938
March 10, 2006 3:18 PM | Comments (1)
Same Shoes
No one will question the importance of pictorial records, although professional historians in general have not often made them a matter of serious study. In fact, the most surprising circumstance is that many historians, professionals, and amateurs alike, who are most meticulous about documenting their written manuscripts with source notes and arguments, use illustrations without the least attempt at documenting the source or authenticity of the illustrations used. This practice is so common that it seems invidious to single out any one case for criticism.
. . . Unfortunately seldom is there available all the information which we would desire in forming a complete and competent judgment on any artists’ work so far as its value to the social historian goes. The same comment, of course, could be made on the written record upon which our present histories are based. The same procedures, therefore, in passing judgment on the pictorial record must be employed as is employed in the examination of the written record, namely, to utilize the information that is available to the best of our ability and intelligence. (Robert Taft, Artists and Illustrators of the Old West 1850-1900 [1953], p. 249, 251)
First State Normal School
First State Normal School, Winona, MN, (c.1875)
Cabinet Competitors
A stubborn illness brought me down, but now it’s time to ramp back up. For the moment, I’m enjoying these elegant cabinet cards from Cleveland that are positively “golden” in person. Guilt lettering and edging just doesn’t scan. The “mammoth art palace” seems to have been the norm rather than the exception in the late 19th century—virtually every major city had one.
