54
projects, was on direct fi eld observation. It translated
into an apparently naturalistic, non-interventionist
photographic style, in which minimal aesthetic control
was integral to its truth value within a recognisably
proto-modern fi eld method. However the individual
colonial ethnographers continued to make photographs
which became absorbed into anthropology, for instance
the German Richard Parkinson, a planter and trader,
who made a compelling series of photographs of the
culture of the Bismark Archipelago. The two methods of
anthropological photography did not fi nally disentangle
until well into the twentieth century.
The role of anthropological photography in the
public realm was also signifi cant because it had a
profound infl uence on contemporary perceptions of
race and culture. Science was used to legitimate a wide
range of cultural stereotypes and their photographic
manifestations, although science itself had contributed
to these ideas. The expositions, world fairs and music
halls of the nineteenth century were important sites
for both public dissemination of cultures and their
photography. These cultural displays imported groups
of indigenous peoples from all over the world. They
‘performed’ their culture in reconstructed villages on
the exhibition site, many displays becoming more lurid
and exotic as the century progressed, further reinforc-
ing racial and cultural stereotypes. Nonetheless, they
were also seen as sites of serious anthropological sci-
ence. Photographs were made with both a scientifi c and
popular audience in mind. The 1893 Columbia World
Fair in Chicago, for which Boas was anthropologi-
cal advisor, featured many cultures including Native
Americans and Samoans. Photographs sold both as a
book, Portraits Types of the Midway Plaisence, and
as picture postcards. This dissemination extended the
photographic focus of earlier shows for instance Prince
Roland Bonaparte photographed Omaha people at the
Jardin d’Acclimatation in Paris in 1884, and Australian
Aboriginal group at the Folie Bergéres (1886), and Carl
Gunther’s photographs of Bella Coola from Canada’s
Pacifi c coast taken in Berlin in 1885.
Publications of popular anthropology such as Tylor’s
Anthropology (1881) or Friedrich Ratzel’s Völkerkunde
(1894) were illustrated with engravings made directly
from photographs, which functioned as as an index of
their truthfulness. The introduction of the half-tone
brought about further dissemination of anthropologi-
cal photographs. By the turn of the century there were
many heavily illustrated educational magazines such
as the British Living Races of Mankind (1902–3), or in
France Science et Nature, or L’Journal illustré, which
drew on the collections of anthropologists and learned
societies. Anthropological photographs also were exten-
sively disseminated as lantern slides at public lectures.
For instance Cambridge anthropologist A.C. Haddon
gave public lectures on ‘Savage Life in New Guinea’ or
‘The peoples of North America’ using photographs from
his own fi eld research. The dissemination of images of
‘anthropological interest’ also increased from the 1890s
by the global market in picture postcards.
By the early twentieth century shifts in disciplinary
practice brought about major shifts in the production and
evaluation of anthropological photographs. The diver-
sity of cultural behaviour, the subjectivity and random
inclusiveness of photography meant that attempts at the
systematisation proved impossible. The truth of anthr-
pological photography not only lay in its indexicality
but increasingly in the contexts of its making. Although
huge numbers of anthropological photographs contin-
ued to be made, photography was relegated largely to
a visual notebook. The stress in scientifi c anthropology
was on the observation of the trained fi eldworker—the
eye of the fi eldworker, not the camera, become the site
of anthrpological truth.
Elizabeth Edwards
See also: Ethnography; Bourne, John Cooke;
Thomson, John; Hillers, John K.; Kodak; Hunt,
Robert; Zangaki Brothers; Beato, Felice; and Notes
and Queries.Further Reading
Alison, Jane (ed.), Native Nations: Journeys in American Pho-
tography. London: Barbican Art Gallery, 1998.
Banta, Melissa and Curtis Hinsley (eds), From Site to Sight: the
power of photography, Harvard: Peabody Museum, 1986.
Blanchard, Pascal et. al (eds), L’Autre et Nous: “Scenes et Types,”
Paris, Syros/ACHAC, 1995.
Dias, Nellia, “Images et savoir anthropologique au XIXe siècle”
Gradhiva, 22, 1997, 87–97.
Edwards. Elizabeth (ed.), Anthropology and Photography 1860–
1925 London/New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992.
Edwards, Elizabeth, ‘Performing science: still photography and
the Torres Strait,’ in Cambridge and the Torres Strait: Cen-
tenary Essays on the 1898 Anthropological Expedition, eds.,
A. Herle and S. Rouse, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1998.
Edwards, Elizabeth, Raw Histories: photographs , anthropology
and museums. Oxford: Berg, 2001.
Fleming, Paula and Judith Luskey, The North American Indians
in Early Photographs, Oxford, Phaidon, 1988.
Jacknis, Ira, ‘Franz Boas and photography,’ Studies in Visual
Communication 10(1), 1984, 2–60.
Kendall, L., B. Mathé and T. Ross Miller, Drawing Shadows in
Stone: The Photography of the Jesup North Pacifi c Expedi-
tion, 1897–1902, Seattle, WA: University of Washington
Press, 1997.
Pinney, Christopher, Camera Indica London: Reaktion, 1997.
Chapter 1.
Poole, Deborah, Vision, Race and Modernity: A Visual Economy
of the Andean Image World, Princeton, NJ: Princeton Uni-
versity Press. 1997.
Theye, Thomas (ed.) , Der geraubte Schatten: Photographie
als ethnographisches Dokument, Munich, Stadtmuseums.
1989.