Consuming Identities

Visual Culture in Nineteenth-Century San Francisco

Nonfiction, History, Americas, United States, 19th Century, 20th Century
Cover of the book Consuming Identities by Amy DeFalco Lippert, Oxford University Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Amy DeFalco Lippert ISBN: 9780190268992
Publisher: Oxford University Press Publication: March 2, 2018
Imprint: Oxford University Press Language: English
Author: Amy DeFalco Lippert
ISBN: 9780190268992
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Publication: March 2, 2018
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Language: English

Along with the rapid expansion of the market economy and industrial production methods, such innovations as photography, lithography, and steam printing created a pictorial revolution in nineteenth-century society. The proliferation of visual prints, ephemera, spectacles, and technologies transformed public values and perceptions, and its legacy was as significant as the print revolution that preceded it. Consuming Identities explores the significance of the pictorial revolution in one of its vanguard cities: San Francisco, the revolving door of the gold rush. In their correspondence, diaries, portraits, and reminiscences, thousands of migrants to the city by the Bay demonstrated that visual media constituted a central means by which people navigated the bewildering host of changes taking hold around them in the second half of the nineteenth century, from the spread of capitalism and class formation to immigration and urbanization. Images themselves were inextricably associated with these world-changing forces; they were commodities, but as representations of people, they also possessed special cultural qualities that gave them new meaning and significance. Visual media transcended traditional boundaries of language and culture that divided diverse groups within the same urban space. From the 1848 conquest of California and the gold discovery to the disastrous earthquake and fire of 1906, San Francisco anticipated broader cultural transformations in the commodification, implementation, and popularity of images. For the city's inhabitants and sojourners, an array of imagery came to mediate, intersect with, and even constitute social interaction in a world where virtual reality was becoming normative.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Along with the rapid expansion of the market economy and industrial production methods, such innovations as photography, lithography, and steam printing created a pictorial revolution in nineteenth-century society. The proliferation of visual prints, ephemera, spectacles, and technologies transformed public values and perceptions, and its legacy was as significant as the print revolution that preceded it. Consuming Identities explores the significance of the pictorial revolution in one of its vanguard cities: San Francisco, the revolving door of the gold rush. In their correspondence, diaries, portraits, and reminiscences, thousands of migrants to the city by the Bay demonstrated that visual media constituted a central means by which people navigated the bewildering host of changes taking hold around them in the second half of the nineteenth century, from the spread of capitalism and class formation to immigration and urbanization. Images themselves were inextricably associated with these world-changing forces; they were commodities, but as representations of people, they also possessed special cultural qualities that gave them new meaning and significance. Visual media transcended traditional boundaries of language and culture that divided diverse groups within the same urban space. From the 1848 conquest of California and the gold discovery to the disastrous earthquake and fire of 1906, San Francisco anticipated broader cultural transformations in the commodification, implementation, and popularity of images. For the city's inhabitants and sojourners, an array of imagery came to mediate, intersect with, and even constitute social interaction in a world where virtual reality was becoming normative.

More books from Oxford University Press

Cover of the book A Call for Judgment by Amy DeFalco Lippert
Cover of the book The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Buddhism by Amy DeFalco Lippert
Cover of the book A Middle Class Without Democracy by Amy DeFalco Lippert
Cover of the book Martha Graham in Love and War by Amy DeFalco Lippert
Cover of the book The Goddess as Role Model by Amy DeFalco Lippert
Cover of the book The Candidate by Amy DeFalco Lippert
Cover of the book Handbook of Culture and Memory by Amy DeFalco Lippert
Cover of the book Little Lord Fauntleroy Level 1 Oxford Bookworms Library by Amy DeFalco Lippert
Cover of the book Writing with Scissors by Amy DeFalco Lippert
Cover of the book Optic Antics by Amy DeFalco Lippert
Cover of the book Brain, Body, and Mind by Amy DeFalco Lippert
Cover of the book Political Institutions and Practical Wisdom by Amy DeFalco Lippert
Cover of the book John Winthrop by Amy DeFalco Lippert
Cover of the book Central Asia in World History by Amy DeFalco Lippert
Cover of the book Integrative Environmental Medicine by Amy DeFalco Lippert
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy