Description:
Examines the relationship between photography and medicine in American culture. Focuses on the American Civil War and postbellum Philadelphia to explore how medical models and metaphors helped establish the professional legitimacy of commercial photography while promoting belief in the rehabilitative powers of studio portraiture.
Brief description: Tanya Sheehan is Associate Professor in the Art Department at Colby College.
Review Quotes:
"Sheehan's examination of medical photography in light of the larger dynamics of nineteenth-century photographic portraiture offers a way to integrate the history of medical photography with the history of Civil War photography."
--Andrea Volpe The Journal of the Civil War Era