Picturing Men
A Century of Male Relationships in Everyday American Photography
260 pages
|
142 halftones
|
7 x 10
|
© 2002
There was a time in America when two men pictured with their arms wrapped around each other, or perhaps holding hands, weren’t necessarily seen as sexually involved—a time when such gestures could be seen simply as those of intimate friendship rather than homoeroticism.
Such is the time John Ibson evokes in Picturing Men, a striking visual record of changes in attitudes about relationships between gentlemen, soldiers, cowboys, students, lumberjacks, sailors, and practical jokers. Spanning from 1850 to 1950, the 142 everyday photographs that richly illustrate Picturing Men radiate playfulness, humor, and warmth. They portray a lost world for American men: a time when their relationships with each other were more intimate than they commonly are today, regardless of sexual orientation. Picturing Men starkly contrasts the calm affection displayed in earlier photographs with the absence of intimacy in photos from the mid-1950s on. In doing so, this lively, accessible book makes a significant contribution to American history and cultural studies, gender studies, and the history of photography.
Such is the time John Ibson evokes in Picturing Men, a striking visual record of changes in attitudes about relationships between gentlemen, soldiers, cowboys, students, lumberjacks, sailors, and practical jokers. Spanning from 1850 to 1950, the 142 everyday photographs that richly illustrate Picturing Men radiate playfulness, humor, and warmth. They portray a lost world for American men: a time when their relationships with each other were more intimate than they commonly are today, regardless of sexual orientation. Picturing Men starkly contrasts the calm affection displayed in earlier photographs with the absence of intimacy in photos from the mid-1950s on. In doing so, this lively, accessible book makes a significant contribution to American history and cultural studies, gender studies, and the history of photography.
“John Ibson is … a model historical thinker. His modest, indispensable book, Picturing Men, presents a new view of the past which illuminates the present.”—Lambda Book Report
"Ibson's work is one of the few to make a significant contribution to our understanding of American masculinity."
--David D. Doyle Jr., Reviews in American History
"In disclosing the hidden record of male intimacy, Ibson's book also casts the history of male-female intimacy in new perspective . . . [and] raises a host of fascinating issues. . . . Ibson's book [offers] another invitation to historians to think visually as well as verbally, to frame hypotheses from visual sources rather than looking to them merely to illustrate a narrative based entirely on written records."—John F. Kasson, American Historical Review
"This richly illustrated volume contains approximately one hundred and fifty photographs, taken from the 1850s to the 1950s, showing American men together. . . . The vast majority sensitively depict both physical and emotional intimacy between their male subjects. Utilizing everyday photography as evidence, Ibson wants to explain why such intimacy between American males declined rapidly in the United States beginning in the 1920s, albeit with a brief resurgence of closeness between men during World War II. . . . Ibson's study contains many fascinating observations about the history of masculinity and photography as discrete and intertwined subjects."—Peter Boag, Journal of American History
"This astonishing book merits . . . more analysis than the space afforded here. More than anything else, it will make readers acutely aware of how extensive a loss male identity has suffered at the expense of modernity."—Ken Furtado, Echo
Contents
Preface: A Note on Sources, Purposes, and Assumptions
Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments
1. Introduction: Whence Came the Void? Men's Uneasy Relationships in Contemporary America
2. The Lost Ritual: American Men Together in Studio Portraits
3. Pageants of Masculinity: Photography as Cultural Performance
4. Merry Bands of Brothers: Military Photographs through World War I
5. Straightening Up: The Evolution of the Team Portrait
5. Straightening Up: The Evolution of the Team Portrait
6. Whatever Happened to Intimacy? American Men Together in Snapshots
7. Men Set Free: World War II and the Shifting Boundaries of Male Association
Epilogue: Out of the Attic—Vernacular Photography and Cultural Studies
Notes
Index
Notes
Index
For more information, or to order this book, please visit http://www.press.uchicago.edu
Google preview here
You may purchase this title at these fine bookstores. Outside the USA, see our international sales information.
