Photographs, Monuments and Making of ‘Public Histories’: Britain, 1850-1930

Description

Professor Emerita Elizabeth Edwards FBA  (  )

 

This paper will explore the ways in which photography played a central role in establishing historical sites as 'important monuments' to be preserved for posterity for the public good.  I shall argue that 'topographical views' by C19th commercial photographic firms such as J.Valentine and George Washington Wilson contributed  not only to a touristic picturesque but to a growing sense of 'national heritage'.  They developed a visual concentration and sense of significance that can be traced onto emerging patterns of public ownership and the translation of the ancient monument, as, in the early C20th, the Inspectorate of Ancient Monuments increasingly used mass-circulation images to establish a visual rhetoric of 'monument as document'.

 

 

Open to all.  No registration required
Part of Photography between Invisibility and the Unseen Research Group Seminar Series

Administrative assistance: gradfac@crassh.cam.ac.uk