I’ll be presenting a brief talk on the effect that popular photography had on the environment. In the late 19th century, the first Kodak camera was introduced and with it, roll film; suddenly, photographers no longer needed to carry giant glass plates and heavy equipment into streets or woods or wars. Photographic journalism became the hot currency of modern reportage. To show off these images, magazines like National Geographic demanded the whitest paper they could find. This workshop will discuss the type of paper made, how it was made, with a focus on who made that paper and the legacies its production left behind.

Workshop: Paper in 19th-Century Europe

The 19th century witnessed dramatic changes in the production and consumption of paper that crossed both disciplinary and geographic boundaries. This workshop aims to bring together scholars in different disciplines, as well curators, conservators, and others who have engaged in the topic to explore more closely the make-up and meaning of paper during this period. How did artists and/or writers understand the shifts taking place, and in what ways might they have addressed them in their work? What discoveries have been made about the production and material composition of paper produced during this time? What important aspects of paper’s use in non-literary or artistic contexts have not yet received sufficient attention? What might we learn from thinking about 19th-century paper from an environmental perspective? How might considering the production and consumption of paper from the perspective of gender yield new insights?

Conveners:
Michelle Foa, Tulane University
Cary Hollinshead-Strick, American University Paris