Gertrude Kasebier, Imogen Cunningham, Dorothea Lange, Laura Gilpin--author Judith Fryer Davidov examines the influence of the lives and work of a particular network of women photographers linked by time, interaction, and friendship. In presenting one of the most important strands of American photography, this richly illustrated book will interest students of American visual culture, women's studies, and general readers alike. 220 photos.

It would be unthinkable now to omit early female pioneers from any survey of photography's history in the Western world. Yet for many years the gendered language of American, British and French photographic literature made it appear that women's interactions with early photography did not count as significant contributions. Using French and English photo journals, cartoons, art criticism, novels, and early career guides aimed at women, this volume will show why and how early photographic clubs, journals, exhibitions, and studios insisted on masculine values and authority, and how Victorian women engaged with photography despite that dominant trend. Focusing on the period before 1890, when women were yet to develop the self-assurance that would lead to broader recognition of the value of their work, this study probes the mechanisms by which exclusion took place and explores how women practiced photography anyway, both as amateurs and professionals. Challenging the marginalization of women’s work in the early history of photography, this is essential reading for students and scholars of photography, history and gender studies.

Framing the West argues that photography was intrinsic to British territorial expansion and settlement on the northwest coast. Williams shows how male and female settlers used photography to establish control over the territory and its indigenous inhabitants, as well as how native peoples eventually turned the technology to their own purposes. Photographs of the region were used to stimulate British immigration and entrepreneuralism, and imagies of babies and children were designed to advertise the population growth of the settlers. Although Indians were taken by Anglos to document their "disappearing" traditions and to show the success of missionary activities, many Indians proved receptive to photography and turned posing for the white man's camera to their own advantage. This book will appeal to those interested in the history of the West, imperialism, gender, photography, and First Nations/Native America. Framing the West was the winner of the Norris and Carol Hundley Prize of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association.

A Planetary Lens delves into the history of the photo-book, the materiality of the photographic image on the page, and the cultural significance of landscape to reassess the value of print, to locate the sites where stories resonate, and to listen to western women’s voices. From foundational California photographers Anne Brigman and Alma Lavenson to contemporary Native poets and writers Leslie Marmon Silko and Joy Harjo, women artists have used photographs to generate stories and to map routes across time and place. A Planetary Lens illuminates the richness and theoretical sophistication of such composite texts. Looking beyond the ideologies of wilderness, migration, and progress that have shaped settler and popular conceptions of the region, A Planetary Lens shows how many artists gather and assemble images and texts to reimagine landscape, identity, and history in the U.S. West. Based on extensive research into the production, publication, and circulation of women’s photo-texts, A Planetary Lens offers a fresh perspective on the entangled and gendered histories of western American photography and literature and new models for envisioning regional relations.

James Joyce and Photography is the first book to explore in-depth James Joyce's personal and professional engagement with photography. Photographs, photographic devices and photographically-inspired techniques appear throughout Joyce's work, from his narrator's furtive proto-photographic framing in Silhouettes (c. 1897), to the aggressively-minded 'Tulloch-Turnbull girl with her coldblood kodak' in Finnegans Wake (1939). Through an exploration of Joyce's manuscripts and photographic and newspaper archival material, as well as the full range of his major works, this book sheds new light on his sustained interest in this visual medium. This project takes Joyce's intention in Dubliners (1914) to 'betray the soul of that hemiplegia or paralysis which many consider a city' as key to his interaction with photography, which in his literature occupies a dual position between stasis and innovation.

A highly readable exploration of the factors that enhanced and restricted the success of women artists in the West during the 20th century.