Burning flags, busty blondes and bison skulls: 48 photographs that capture America at 250
The Guardian – US News
theguardian.com
Summary
From the gold rush to civil rights, the moon landing to 9/11, the US has always understood, mythologised and sold itself through the power of the still image T he United States was founded in 1776, but did not begin to see itself until the autumn of 1839, when daguerreotypes, the first form of photograph, reached American cities. You could argue the US began again on the morning it could look at its own face. At first photography seemed to answer the democratic promise of 1776. A portrait was no longer reserved for the rich; almost anyone could now leave a trace of their existence. The gold rush became one of the first great American dramas to find the camera: ordinary diggers squinting into the lens, looking beyond it for gold. A more emblematic American scene can scarcely be imagined: what would be called the American Dream, a lottery everyone plays and very few win. The myth was not that they all found gold – it was that the search itself made them American. The camera began fixed in a studio, but soon moved outward to the places where the country was inventing itself. They show the country inventing itself from evidence, denial, desire, grief. In 1864, Lincoln passed legislation to preserve Yosemite “for public use, resort, and recreation”, laying the groundwork for the 1916 creation of the National Park Service.
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From the gold rush to civil rights, the moon landing to 9/11, the US has always understood, mythologised and sold itself through the power of the still image The United States was founded in 1776, but did not begin to see itself until the autumn of 1839, when daguerreotypes, the first form of photograph, reached American cities. You could argue the US began again on the morning it could look at its own face. At first photography seemed to answer the democratic promise of 1776. A portrait was no longer reserved for the rich; almost anyone could now leave a trace of their existence. The gold rush became one of the first great American dramas to find the camera: ordinary diggers squinting into the lens, looking beyond it for gold. A more emblematic American scene can scarcely be imagined: what would be called the American Dream, a lottery everyone plays and very few win. The myth was not that they all found gold – it was that the search itself made them American. Continue reading...
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Published by The Guardian – US News on theguardian.com
