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Photographic Presidents: Making History from Daguerreotype to Digital

by Cara A. Finnegan

University of Illinois Press, 2021

ISBNs

Cloth: 978-0-252-04379-6

Paper: 978-0-252-08578-9

eISBN: 978-0-252-05269-9

OA eISBN: 978-0-252-05324-5

About the Book
Defining the Chief Executive via flash powder and selfie sticks

Lincoln’s somber portraits. Lyndon Johnson’s swearing in. George W. Bush’s reaction to learning about the 9/11 attacks. Photography plays an indelible role in how we remember and define American presidents. Throughout history, presidents have actively participated in all aspects of photography, not only by sitting for photos but by taking and consuming them. Cara A. Finnegan ventures from a newly-discovered daguerreotype of John Quincy Adams to Barack Obama’s selfies to tell the stories of how presidents have participated in the medium’s transformative moments. As she shows, technological developments not only changed photography, but introduced new visual values that influence how we judge an image. At the same time, presidential photographs—as representations of leaders who symbolized the nation—sparked public debate on these values and their implications.

An original journey through political history, Photographic Presidents reveals the intertwined evolution of an American institution and a medium that continues to define it.

About the Author
Cara A. Finnegan is a professor of communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is the author of Making Photography Matter: A Viewer’s History from the Civil War to the Great Depression and Picturing Poverty: Print Culture and FSA Photographs.
Reviews
"Entertaining yet informative. . . Photographic Presidents is an excellent book that brings context and depth to certain decision points within history and how photography shaped them. It takes on a concept often overlooked by scholars as simply there, and moves it front and center into the discussion." --Congress & the Presidency

"Well-written and engaging . . . What will be the next step in how presidents become photographic? Finnegan cannot—and does not try to—answer that question, but the fact that the question resonates in my head after putting down her book is a testament to how thought-provoking Photographic Presidents is." --Journal of American History

"Very interesting and informative . . . Finnegan has covered a lot of ground in this well-illustrated book. She traces the development of the photographic medium and techniques with the history of visual communications and the image of the presidents, and has done it extremely well." --Journal of American Culture

Tags
Portraits & Selfies, Making History, Daguerreotype, Portraits American, Presidents, Photography, Subjects & Themes, Media Studies, Political aspects, Social aspects, United States, Social Science, History
Open Access Information

License: CC BY-NC-ND