An Examination of Social Consciousness Through the Lens of Photography
#History: A Journal of Student Research
Volume 2 Conflict & Law
Article 1
6-2018
An Examination of Social Consciousness Through
the Lens of Photography
Michael Lane
SUNY Brockport
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Repository Citation
Lane, Michael (2018) "An Examination of Social Consciousness Through the Lens of Photography," #History: A Journal of Student
Research: Vol. 2 , Article 1.
Available at: https://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/hashtaghistory/vol2/iss1/1
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @Brockport. It has been accepted for inclusion in #History: A Journal of
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AN EXAMINATION OF SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE CIVIL WAR
THROUGH THE LENS OF PHOTOGRAPHY
Michael Lane, The College at Brockport, SUNY
During the American Civil War, battlefield photography helped shape the Northern consciousness
by shaking it free from preconceived ideas of martial glory and valor. This paradigm shift allowed
the North to approach war with a modern mentality, mirroring the modernity of military tactics
and hardware, which arose out of tactical necessity. The North was the main progenitor of
photographic material during the war, and therefore shaped not only the contemporary
interpretation of the war but the historical narrative as well. The Union’s archive is substantial, but
it consists of a bias that tends to focus on the Eastern Theater along the Atlantic coast and the
Appalachian mountains. This bias shapes the historical framework in which historians view the
war.
Due to the Northern naval blockade the South, on the other hand, was unable to obtain the
chemicals and materials to produce photographs in any meaningful volume. They were able to
capture and produce a few images in the beginning of the war but lacked the infrastructure to
disseminate the images on a wide scale to the public. This limited access to material and markets
hurt the South’s ability to shape public opinion. Furthermore, much of the Southern photographic
record has been lost due to the destructive capacity of the war and the ravages of time. The disparity
between North and South resulted in an advantage for Union supporters with regards to
photographic propaganda, enabling the North to maintain public support even when morale ebbed
during 1862 and 1863. Photography also allowed the North to shift its war aims to meet the
contingencies that resulted from the volatility of the conflict.
Through an examination of pre-Civil War expression, found in both photography and
traditional artistic mediums, a clear change can be delineated that will illuminate both the role that
photography played in conveying the Union’s message and how this message changed and adapted
over time. Additionally, an examination of the technological aspects of photography will elucidate
the advantages the Union held over their Confederate counterparts as well as how this technology
spurred a sense of unity throughout the North. Examining individual photographers and their
artistic expression will further lend credence to the concept that photography morphed during the
war, supplying the cultural material that was both overtly and covertly utilized to alter public
opinion and enabled the North to fight the total war necessary for victory.
Nineteenth-Century Landscape Painting and Its Effects on Photography
American photographers during this period derived their artistic perspective from their
counterparts in the art world. European and American landscape painters differed in their approach
toward nature and the wilderness, which reflected their divergent experiences and relations with
this realm. The former perceived danger and evil lurking in the ever-decreasing forested regions
that harkened back to their medieval heritage. The latter saw a space for the rebirth of humanity, a
second Eden that had been squandered in the Old World. Art historian Eleanor Harvey states, “As
Americans began to see positive resonance in their own natural landscapes, they developed a
wilderness aesthetic that linked America’s prospects for her future with two things: the potential
for progress in cultivating the raw landscape and the virtues found in pristine aspects of those wild
aspects.”1 This aestheticism lingers in photographs captured during the war and only changes to
compensate for the level of destruction after the battle of Antietam (1862) but is never completely
Lane / “Civil War through Photography”
abandoned. Often, the photographic scenes of destruction wrought upon nature and man
reverberated with an echo of this “new” Eden being lost or destroyed.
Harvey states that, “Balancing the awe-inspiring power of nature was a renewed awareness
of nature’s amoral state – its indifference to human suffering as a signal of god’s displeasure –
which insinuated itself into the vocabulary of landscape.”2 This metaphorical analogy can be seen
throughout the photographic record of the Civil War in the landscapes, which often were scarred
and seemed to consume the individual through the interplay of scope and perspective. PreAntietam photographs regularly depict the devastation of nature in the distance while the presence
of man is posed in the fore as an ancillary element disconnected from the grand scale of death and
maiming that had recently occurred. This was the result of the legacy of nineteenth-century
respectability combined with the “aesthetically pleasing” art that preceded the war.
In the years leading up to the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, photography struggled to
gain recognition as a valid form of artistic expression. Many of the photographers of the era, one
of the most famous being Mathew Brady, had professional training in traditional artistic mediums
such as painting or sketch work, social connections to artists, or a personal interest in art. To
produce photographs that were aesthetically pleasing and commercially successful, photographers
imitated their brethren in the traditional arts.
At the time, the two most popular forms of paintings, and by extension photography, were
portraiture and landscapes. Portrait painters were able to conceal unflattering aspects of
individuals through the use of artistic license and the use of favorable lighting. Despite the realism
of photography, photographers were able to manipulate the lighting, the positioning of the subject,
and the development process in order to generate works that “painted” their subjects in a flattering
way. An example of this is Mathew Brady’s adoption of skylights, which he cut into the roof of
his studio at 205 Broadway in Manhattan, increasing the natural light and resulting in the
production of exceptional photographs.3 This innovation enabled him to captu (...truncated)
