A History of Photography in USC Libraries Collections

Introduction

With the public announcement of its “invention” in 1839, photography promised a more accurate and persuasive image of the world than had ever been possible before. Its images appeared to record the workings of a superior vision, unaffected by subjective prejudice. At the same, they seemed to be conjured by magic, rendering the invisible suddenly visible. Photographs could be chemically fixed to offer enduring records of fleeting moments, “exotic” places, and “vanishing” peoples. New methods of reproductive technologies ensured that these images would circulate around the globe at unfettered speeds, changing how we see the world, experience the passage of time, and understand ourselves and our relationships with others.

The history of photography presented in this online exhibition troubles the persistent faith in the realism of the photographic “document” by focusing on photography as a social, scientific, and aesthetic practice. How have photographs historically functioned as evidence, argument, or creative expression? In what contexts do these images circulate and to what ends?

This exhibition was collectively conceived and curated by the undergraduate students enrolled in History and Theory of Photography (AHIS 373g) in the tumultuous Fall 2020 semester—as COVID-19 was ravaging families and communities around the world, as the U.S. presidential election became a referendum on the survival of American democracy, and as university life shifted entirely online through the visual culture of new and unfamiliar videoconferencing software. The photographs you will find in this exhibition have been culled from the diverse holdings of USC Libraries Special Collections and complimentary sources in the public domain. They offer an opportunity to study art, science, history, culture, and social behavior over time, and they ask us to reflect on the ways we mediate our world through technological images in a digital age.

We would like to thank Curtis Fletcher and Frank Pol of the Ahmanson Lab, Sidney Harman Academy for Polymathic Study, and Michaela Ullman and Suzi Noruschat of Special Collections for supporting our research and making this exhibition possible. We extend our special appreciation to Oscar Wu and Emily Zhou for their work on the exhibition design, and to Dora Vanette, teaching assistant in Art History, for her editorial and administrative support.
Team I
Katherine Bower
Cassandra Cabrera
Ana Gutierrez
    Covarrubias
Owen O’Connor
Team II
Cristian Canton
Danielle de los Reyes
Qira Kong
Blake McDonald
Oliver Wright
Brianna Sampson
Emily Zhou
Team III
Lindsay DuVernay
Sabrina Feng
Spenser Gloady
Yiwei Lu
Alaric Ma
Jeremy Wong
Team IV
Yinuo Cao
Josiah Clark
Ray Fluet
Kymia Ildardashty
Juliette Moreno
Ty Shamblin
Cheryl Ting
Oscar Wu
Team V
Jose Chavez
Connor Duncan
Ismael Hernandez
Payton Janish
Luke Lozano
Alex Tai
Emilia Weske

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