Home : Book details : Book description

Description of  Shot in Alabama: A History of Photography, 1839 1941, and a List of Photographers

Shot in Alabama by Frances Osborn Robb is a visual and textual narrative of Alabamas photographic history from 1839 to 1941. It describes the phenomenon of photography as practiced in Alabama as a major cultural force, paying close attention to the particular contexts from which each image emerges and the fragments of microhistory that each image documents. Presented chronologicallyfrom the very first photograph ever taken in the state to the appearance of cameras as commonplace possessions in mid-twentieth-century householdsRobb draws into sharp relief the eras of daguerreotypes, Civil War photography, photographic portraiture at the end of the nineteenth century, urban and rural photography in the early twentieth century, WPA photography during the Great Depression, postcards and tourist photography, and preWorld War II illustrated books and art photographs. Robb also examines a wide spectrum of vernacular photography: Alabama-made photographs of everyday people and places, the photographs that fill dresser drawers and shoeboxes, a vast array of unusual images against which Alabamas more typical iconography can be measured. She also chronicles the work of hundreds of photographersblack and white, amateur and professional, women and mensome little-known outside their communities, some of them the mediums most important practitioners. Who Shot Alabama? is an accompanying appendix that includes 1,400 photographers by name, working dates, and locationa resource that will help countless individuals, families, and archives identify the specific Alabama photographers whose names appear on family photographs or those in institutional collections. Read more