Contents
List 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
Tanya Sheehan is Associate Professor in the Art Department at Colby College.
“In Doctored, Tanya Sheehan investigates the discursive
intersections between photography and medicine in the late
nineteenth century. Sheehan explores an understudied trove of
professional photographic literature in order to understand the
history of photography from its most popular practitioners’ point
of view. This is a wonderful visual culture history.”—Shawn
Michelle Smith,School of the Art Institute of Chicago
“Doctored is a highly original and thoughtful study that
illuminates the rich ties between nineteenth-century American
portrait photography and medical practice. It illustrates how the
nascent medium of photography gained legitimacy by forging ties to
science and explores the deeply rooted belief in photography as a
cure for social and even physical ills. The book makes a major
contribution to our understanding of early photographic practice
and its complex relationship to medicine, race, and class.”—Martin
A. Berger,University of California, Santa Cruz
“This remarkable book combines close readings of periodicals with
theoretical acumen and interpretive insights, revealing the central
role that medical metaphors played in American photographic culture
in the nineteenth century. Conveniently embodying the desires and
anxieties of both photographers and their clients, these medical
metaphors were made manifest as much in advertisements, cartoons,
and articles as in actual photographic portraits. Casting doubt on
any hard-and-fast distinction between the social and the physical
body, Doctored will change the way you think about this period of
American history.”—Geoffrey Batchen,Victoria University
“Tanya Sheehan’s Doctored is cultural history at its best,
combining a magisterial examination of nineteenth-century
photographic literature with a persuasive and nuanced argument
about metaphor and photography’s discursive claims to professional
expertise. A must-read for scholars of photography, art history,
American studies, nineteenth-century cultural history, and urban
studies.”—Elspeth H. Brown,University of Toronto
“Sheehan's Doctored adds an important confluence of science and art
to published histories of photography. . . . With elegant endpapers
and a unique but readable typeface, Doctored is a nicely
constructed book. . . . The interdisciplinary nature of [Sheehan's]
project makes it suitable not only for photo historians, but also
for those interested in medical and scientific history, critical
race studies, and cultural studies.”—Emily Una Weirich Art
Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA) Reviews
“[Doctored] contributes as much to the history of ideas, or of
language, as it does to the history of images.”—Jennifer
Green-Lewis American Historical Review
“Sheehan’s examination of medical photography in light of the
larger dynamics of nineteenth-century photographic portraiture
offers a way to integrate the history of medical photography with
the history of Civil War photography.”—Andrea Volpe The Journal of
the Civil War Era
“In this highly original book, Tanya Sheehan showcases a vast,
alternative narrative in which cameras were seen as scalpels,
developing chemicals as therapeutic drugs, and photographers as
‘doctors of photography’ processing the ability to inspect,
diagnose, and rehabilitate diseased and disordered bodies.Doctored
is a finely detailed examination of the social and historical
factors surrounding photography’s use of medicine, grounded in
latter nineteenth-century Philadelphia’s vibrant cultural
brew.Sheehan has given us an inventive book that illuminates our
understanding of the body, both social and physical, and its role
in the nascent years of photography.”—Catherine Hollochwost CAA
Reviews
“In seeking to articulate and define their collective professional
identity, nineteenth-century studio portrait photographers turned
to medicine for inspiration, model, and metaphor. Tanya Sheehan
masterfully and imaginatively presents this hitherto-unexplored
avenue of defining photographic authority. . . . Doctored is
decidedly a most welcome and handsome addition to the literature on
the history of photography.”—James M. Edmonson Winterthur
Portfolio
“Sheehan’s book offers a breadth of perspectives on a very
particular historical moment and theme that connects to the visual
culture and social context of the time and enriches understandings
of the historical emergence of photographic culture and its
motivations.”—Hannah Drayson Leonardo Reviews
“Doctored, by Tanya Sheehan, draws fascinating connections between
the early days of studio photography and established medical
practices of the day. . . . [Sheehan] spends a great deal of time
discussing the cultural history of Victorian Philadelphia,
explaining not just the similarities between medicine and
photography but also the general public view of photography and its
impact on race relations as well as a person’s place in society.
This book is just as much a historical account of Victorian
American society as it is a history of the portrait photography
industry.”—Annie Moore ICON: Journal of the International Committee
for the History of Technology
“Tanya Sheehan . . . provides a unique, innovative comparative
study of the development of the relationship between portrait and
medical photography in Philadelphia during the nineteenth century.
. . . Sheehan effectively demonstrates how the past has strongly
influenced the present, richly contextualizing the ‘doctoring’ of
photographs.”—Elizabeth K. Mix Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide
“Doctored is a refreshing look at the history of photography, and
Sheehan effortlessly yet cautiously uses theory to support her
arguments.”—Kristi Johnson Journal of American Culture
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