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 At the Temple Gates by Amy DeFalco Lippert
Cover of the book American Revolution: Oxford Bibliographies Online Research Guide by Amy DeFalco Lippert
Cover of the book American Politics: A Very Short Introduction by Amy DeFalco Lippert
Cover of the book Creating Modern Neuroscience: The Revolutionary 1950s by Amy DeFalco Lippert
Cover of the book Apparitions of Asia by Amy DeFalco Lippert
Cover of the book Taxing Wars by Amy DeFalco Lippert
Cover of the book The Oxford Guide to The Book of Common Prayer by Amy DeFalco Lippert
Cover of the book Ending Life by Amy DeFalco Lippert
Cover of the book The Fight For Time by Amy DeFalco Lippert
Cover of the book Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching 3rd edition - Oxford Handbooks for Language Teachers by Amy DeFalco Lippert
Cover of the book Lions of the North by Amy DeFalco Lippert
Cover of the book The New Buddhism by Amy DeFalco Lippert
Cover of the book Unsettling Gaza by Amy DeFalco Lippert
Cover of the book The Emergence of Sin by Amy DeFalco Lippert
Cover of the book Oliver Cromwell: Oxford Bibliographies Online Research Guide 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