Читать книгу Picturing Dogs, Seeing Ourselves - Ann-Janine Morey - Страница 12

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THE VISUAL RHETORIC OF EVERYDAY PEOPLE

“Am still in Des Moines and working for my pa. I worked in a downtown drug store for some time slinging soda water but the late hours and Sundays left me no time for my family which I send a cut of. Sid.” Posted in 1906 to a Mrs. Chas Vorhies (?), the real photo postcard (RPPC) in figure 13 features a photograph of five neatly dressed young men with a dog seated in the middle of the group, elevated to eye level with the human companions by a crate. Sid captions the image: “Me ’n’ me friends.” The image is a good example of a mascot picture, a thematically popular genre in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and we can reasonably suppose that Sid and his friends are a team, club, or group of co-workers who have a shared animal that represents them, grounds them, and expresses something about their collective spirit. The format of the RPPC is relatively late in the chronology of photographic formats, so the centrality of the canine is not surprising. But even the earliest and usually most costly form of photographic images for collectors, daguerreotypes, sometimes included dogs, as do all of the formats that followed them.

With the RPPC it is possible to have pictures and words in the same communication, as we have with Sid’s card. Here is yet another meaning of visual rhetoric—that words, spoken or written, stand in relationship to something visual, and they are mutually enhancing. I begin by describing the conventions of dog photography, along with introducing the photographic formats that make up the bulk of the collection. It is important to describe the protocols that governed the dog in the picture, because, as with any folklore, deviation from what is expected is part of the surprise and charm of the event. What is different, or what is absent, is part of the reading.

FIGURE 13

Sid. Used RPPC, 1906, 7.3 × 7.5 cm.

PHOTOGRAPHIC CONVENTIONS

Although the dog is the animal most commonly presented in antique photographs, people documented their household menageries with a generous inclusivity. People kept horses, chickens, cats, rabbits, and a variety of tamed wild animals and birds, and all of these critters can be found in nineteenth-century photography. Even before urban sprawl, animals have always occupied an ambiguous position in the economy of family values. Some of these animals were destined for love and others were destined for the market or the dinner table. Moreover, displaying livestock in a photograph was one further way of documenting one’s success, so the animating motivations for making a portrait with an animal could be ambiguous. In figure 14, both the image and the history of race relations require us to wonder if the black man holding the horse is the proud owner or one of the proud owner’s hired hands, that is, one of the creatures on display. He is standing at an angle rather than greeting the camera head-on, as a proud owner might do. The dog is attentive to him, suggesting that he cares for the dog, but that doesn’t mean he owns the dog any more than he owns the horse. In figure 15, the effect of including livestock is more comical. The little girl’s worried face makes us suspect that it was not her idea to hold the disheveled fowl. In this family group, the dog, an English setter, and the bird are meaningful possessions for display. It’s surprising how often animals—not just dogs—show up in studio photographs, because the presence of animals also pushes the presentation toward the casual, if not the unexpected.

FIGURE 14

Unused RPPC, 1910–1918, 13.2 × 8.2 cm.

But photographs with dogs reveal a wide variety of settings, from forests to fields, to front porches and parlors, to the front seat of the family wagon or automobile. Wherever people could go, so could dogs. And where people were relaxed and comfortable, so was the dog. Conversely, where people were formal and rigid in their demeanor, so was the dog. Typically, we explain the stiffness of nineteenth-century photographs by referring to their exposure time. Headrests and stands were used to ensure the stillness of the subject, and many photographs of people standing show the “third foot” of the stand that is keeping them fixed in place. But while it was important for subjects to remain still, the exposure time was not the entire explanation, nor was it just that the subjects were uptight. The exposure time for the daguerreotype was less than sixty seconds, and that format was rapidly succeeded by far more sitter-friendly modes. As early as 1851, the use of glass-plate negatives reduced the sitting time to a few seconds for outdoor exposures and thirty to sixty seconds for indoor portraits.¹ Yet we have stiff-looking portraits long past the time when such rigidity was necessary. Why?

FIGURE 15

Cabinet card, 1880s, 13.3 × 9.6 cm. Photograph by A. Hurst. Marshall, Illinois.

The formality of portraiture has to do with both the novelty of the medium and the way in which the camera invaded private space. Much like Native Americans, who felt that the camera robbed one’s soul, many Americans felt that “unguarded facial expressions were reflections of deep and sincere feeling,” and that the undisciplined face revealed emotions and feelings that perhaps were better reserved for private spaces. “Kodakers” took gleeful pleasure in catching people off guard, and thereby surprising them as their real selves, so late nineteenth-century Americans had to be constantly on guard to “avoid exhibiting the wrong feelings.”² It was the marketing of the camera by George Eastman that moved the technology beyond its original class-based exclusivity. By 1889, photography had been pronounced a “craze” by the New York Tribune, and Eastman sold more than 150,000 Brownie cameras in 1900, the year of their introduction.³ As I mentioned in the introduction, smiling made a relatively late appearance as one of the commanded gestures of the photographic moment. People who showed their teeth in pictures were likely to be lower class, inebriates, or children.⁴ The decision to include the dog in the solemnized photographic moment was not casual, then. Undoubtedly, some people brought the dog with them because their fondness designated the dog as a valued family member. Others, however, were being attentive to the accoutrements of middle-class life, and introducing the potential mess and exuberance of a dog into this dignified occasion required care, so that the dog participated in delivering a controlled message.

Figure 16 presents one of those stiff-looking portraits that we associate with nineteenth-century photography, and in it we see how the dog contributes to the communication. The original image is a cabinet card, which became a popular format for preserving and displaying photographs.⁵ The distinguishing feature of a cabinet card is that the photograph is mounted on stiff cardboard, thus providing a flat frame so that the picture could be propped for display on a cabinet shelf. A photo on a 20.3 × 12.7 cm (8 × 5 in.) card was typically 10.1 × 12.7 cm (4 × 5 in.), although both cards and photos can be much larger. Sources vary on the approximate dating for cabinet cards, but it is generally accurate to say they were introduced in the 1860s and enjoyed peak popularity between 1870 and 1910; their use had waned by 1920. Typically, cabinet cards involved a studio setting, and we are most likely to discover recognizable dog breeds in the studio photos, because these are the folks who could best afford the purebred dog and the studio setting. At the same time, it is important to note that while the professional photographer took his or her place in the economics of image making, the accessibility of the technology made it possible for individuals to take charge of their own image making. Some cabinet cards offer a polished studio presentation, while others show the hastiest of backgrounds and poorly cut, processed, and pasted images.⁶

The cabinet card in figure 16 is imprinted with the name of the photographer, who has embellished his logo and provided a classical background of pillars and an urn. The woman’s hair and clothing are good indicators for dating. Her hair, with its soft, off-the-face styling, is incongruously accented by a hair ornament that appears to be stabbed into the bun at the back of the head, and, along with the legof-mutton sleeves, suggests a time frame of 1895–1900,⁷ keeping in mind that not everyone immediately updated their wardrobe every time a new fashion emerged. It was common in the last decade of the century for men to sit and women to stand, following the expectation that seating belongs to those of higher status.⁸ The woman in this portrait lays a proprietary hand on the man’s shoulder, but otherwise there is no physical or visual contact between the subjects or between subjects and viewer. The man is entirely self-referential in his physical pose, despite the dog on his lap. In fact, the dog is the only warming touch in the photo, but even the dog looks uncomfortable. There is something ambiguous about bringing the animal up from the floor, putting it in a potentially close relationship, and yet creating a scene in which each creature remains isolated and lonely-looking.

FIGURE 16

Cabinet card, 1890s, 9.8 × 14.2 cm. Photograph by Eugene Popp. Evansville, Indiana.

It was not the mechanical requirements of the camera that enforced this rigid image, and the difference is readily obvious if we compare this portrait with portraits presented in an earlier format, the carte de visite (CDV). These images, introduced around 1854, are typically 6.3 × 10.1 cm (2.5 × 4 in.). They are presented in a convenient calling-card size, which is in fact what they were used for, as well as for trading with friends to add to an album collection. Eight to twelve images at a time could be made from a single negative. The CDVs are easier to date than the cabinet cards, and experts usually look at the color of the card, its thickness (the thinner it is, the older it is), the kind of edges and decorations embellishing the card, and the setting and composition (the more elaborate the setting, the more recent the card). The peak popularity for CDVs was the first half of the 1860s, and they are uncommon after 1885. Thus, if exposure time was an issue, we might expect that this older presentation format would show stiffer subjects. Yet while there are certainly formal CDV images, there are also many that show a relaxed subject, such as figure 17.

FIGURE 17

Lillie and Carlo. CDV, 1865–1870, 5.4 × 8.9 cm. Photograph by Payne & Bagley, New Star Photograph Gallery, 205 Third Street, San Francisco, California.

FIGURE 18

CDV, 1860s, 5.6 × 8.7 cm. Photograph by H. W. &B. D. Bolles. Le Raysville, Pennsylvania.

This playful image has been hand-tinted and the upholstered chair colored a dark green. The back of this small card identifies not only the photographer but also the subjects, Lillie and Carlo. Lillie’s hair and dress, and the format of the card itself, suggest a date in the late 1860s. Lillie is leaning forward, probably steadying the dog, and she’s smiling about it, clearly enjoying the frivolity of the moment. During the auction at which this image was sold, there was also a solo image of a much more conventional Lillie without the dog, standing straight and with a solemn face. The image in figure 17 seems to be the one taken between the prepared shots—the one that records both the human and the canine smile.

In addition to the cabinet card and CDV, the tintype was another popular format. Tintypes could be produced in any number of sizes, including the tiny “gem” portraits that were sometimes mounted in a CDV-size card (i.e., 6.3 × 10.1 cm). Tintype images were made in a durable metal, but the image itself tended to be dark and was subject to scratching, so I have included very few of these. The CDV and the tintype, however, were convenient for their portability, and many Civil War families had pictures made in the CDV or tintype format for soldiers to carry into war. Figure 18 is a CDV with a wistfulness about it, which, along with the possible dating, suggests that such a usage might be part of the missing narrative. The large dog, probably a Newfoundland, has been made an integral part of the photographic relationship. His big body is draped over a chair that is pulled alongside the boy’s, and both have kept very still. There is a light pinking on the boy’s cheeks, added to give a more natural appearance. Both the tinting and the pose suggest an implicit warmth and affection that is lacking in figure 16. Thus neither the technology nor the format required a stiff, unsmiling presentation, but until Kodak was able to persuade Americans that the smile was a necessary feature of family documentation, the dog filled in that missing smile. However, as we have seen in figures 16 and 17, the dog can function as the visual welcome only if the human subjects have allowed it, so choices about poses and settings are important elements in this communication.

None of the conventions that present a dog in a photograph is particularly surprising. Dogs may be put on the floor, sleeping or sitting at the feet of the master. The erect young African American man in figure 19 is tall and so formal in his demeanor that it is easy to overlook the sleeping pug on the floor. The sparseness of this studio setting is interesting, because the time frame for this portrait would lead us to expect a more decorated setting. Photographers often charged for additional props, or perhaps this man was not offered the usually amenities because of his race. Riverton, New Jersey, did not have a large African American population at the turn of the century. The subject is wearing a suit the boxy jacket of which looks too big for him, and its bottom edge is puckered, as if the jacket has not been hemmed by a professional tailor. Still, it is clear that, whether this man improvised his clothing or not, he has dressed well for the record. Like the jacket, however, the dog may also have been borrowed, as there is no visual indication of a relationship between the two. The dog is part of the iconography that seems to have been expected for a middle-class presentation, as we’ll see in chapter 2.

Depending upon the context, then, sleeping and sitting dogs may occupy no particular relational or aesthetic purpose but are present as iconographic filler, although that choice is in itself a comment about the identity of the sitter. As we have just seen in the preceding figures, however, dogs can also be found on chairs, chair arms, tables, and studio pedestals, often occupying the dominant visual space in the image and suggesting a loving equality and respect. Even large dogs can be posed on furniture so as to appear at lap level, if not eye level, as is evident in figure 18. In figure 20, the dog gets the couch, with one leg extended over the arm of the couch so that the girl can “hold paws” with her pet. In fact, it is possible for the human to have the uncomfortable position, just to make sure that the pets get appropriate billing, as in figure 21, an outdoor presentation with little composition or planning beyond bringing the chair outdoors. I am treating this image as if the dog and cat belong to the woman, although, as chapter 3 documents, white employers sometimes had pictures made of the domestic help and pets, as if they were the same category of creature. When pictures of African Americans and dogs are involved, interpretation is even more tenuous.

FIGURE 19

Cabinet card, 1900–1910, 9.9 × 14.1 cm. Photograph by Lothrop. Riverton, New Jersey.

The image is not pristine. There appears to be melting snow on the ground, suggesting that additional discomfort was involved in producing this picture. Although there were African American photographers working at the turn of the century, many African Americans would not have had access to the amenities of a well-furnished indoor studio. Despite the incongruity of her clothing in the casual outdoor setting, this formally attired African American woman perches on the arm of a rocking chair so that the dog gets the comfortable seat. She’s trying to hold on to the uncooperative cat as well, making the balancing act especially challenging. Her forthright gaze, however, replicated by the dog’s gaze and posture, claims the dignity of the moment.

FIGURE 20

CDV, 1880s, 6 × 9.6 cm. Photograph by J. O. Knutson. Blooming Prairie, Minnesota.

FIGURE 21

Unused RPPC, 1913–1922, 7.7 × 11.2 cm.

In figure 22, professionally attired Mr. Streck has put his alert Dalmatian on a table beside him. Although he is not touching the dog, the tilt of their heads and their symmetry of expression suggest a comfortable relationship between the two, especially in that putting a long-legged dog on a small table and having it sit so nicely suggests that the dog trusts its owner. In figure 23, the dog gets equal billing with the child, both visually and in words. On the back of the image, the two are identified as “Helka and Queedle.” Unlike Mr. Streck, who gets overshadowed by his dramatically colored and positioned dog, Helka holds her own with Queedle thanks to her commanding hat and equally commanding gaze.

Images of children with the family pet are probably the most numerous of all dog presentations. Much like occupational photographs, images of children contain visual documentation about their childhoods, including toys (dolls and guns), wagons, bicycles, and the family dog. The RPPC in figure 24 shows “the young sprout at play,” a boy with his wagon, his dog, and his cloth-faced doll riding in the wagon. His backdrop is a drying bear skin, and his Buster Brown clothing suggests that he has been dressed up for this picture, despite its casual setting. Generally, the RPPC was 8.8 × 12.7 cm (3 × 5 in), although there can be noticeable variation from company to company. Postcards were introduced by the Columbian Exposition (World’s Fair) in 1888, and by 1906 most delivery routes in rural areas had been established. Anyone could have an image developed in small batches—maybe ten at a time. Traveling photographers visited towns and rural homes, setting up impromptu studios in the house, on the front porch, or in the garden, and all the possible conventions of dog positioning evident in the cabinet card or carte de visite are available in the RPPC format.⁹

FIGURE 22

Mr. Streck. Cabinet card, 1900–1910, 7.9 × 10.3 cm. Photograph by Dingeldey, 780 Jefferson Street, Buffalo, New York.

FIGURE 23

Helka and Queedle. Used RPPC, 1910–1918, 8.2 × 11.5 cm.

As noted with figure 13, the RPPC offers the appealing, if dangerous, possibility of wedding text and image. A person could write a quick message in the morning, post it, and have someone in an adjoining county receive it that afternoon. The speed of this communication is comparable to the advent of e-mail, and, like e-mail, the postcard brought private lives under public scrutiny. Folks were careful about what they put on the cards, knowing that the postmistress and the mail carrier might very well be interested in their comments, leading some to pen terse and cryptic messages, while others crammed as much commentary as possible into the small space allocated, as we saw in figure 1. In figure 24, the writer mentions the dog’s name but not the boy’s, writing in a neat cursive hand, “The young sprout at play. Will send another of the boy and Bird as soon as finished.” The affectionate message suggests that the dog—Bird—is as much of interest as the nameless “sprout.” Like today’s text messaging, these cards perform the same work, though their effect may be less ephemeral.

FIGURE 24

Young Sprout and Bird. Used RPPC, 1906–1908, 8.2 × 11.3 cm.

FIGURE 25

Cabinet card, 1910s, 17.2 × 12.2 cm.

In addition to the various stagings with furniture that put the dog front and center, makeshift outdoor presentations often import an element from the formal studio portrait, and that is the piece of carpet for the human and dog to stand on. The carpet seems to suggest the domestic amenities of a civilized household, and perhaps a certain income level as well. By bringing the carpet outside, the subjects imply that a full, respectable household supports the picture, and they introduce an element of control in an outdoor setting. That piece of carpet is so ubiquitous that, along with the dog, we can recognize it as an essential part of the visual rhetoric. It is common to find a small carpet on the front porch, but sometimes it is on the bare ground, as in the family photograph in figure 25. In this large cabinet-card presentation, we find a formally posed family of nine in the informal outdoors, positioned in front of a tarp or blanket that has been affixed to cover a house wall. The family members are neatly centered around a small square of carpet, which looks like a home-loomed pattern rather than the Oriental design sometimes favored in studio presentations. Although they all look serious, and it’s possible that two of the women are in mourning clothing, both the dog and the hands on the shoulders hint at more affectionate demeanors off camera. Even formally, they are in physical contact with one another. The interesting exception is the patriarch in front, who is touched by no one, and the dog positioned at the feet of its master.

While the RPPC belonged most to lower- and middle-class Americans, it is not the photographic format that determines the content and presentation. There are any number of CDVs and cabinet cards that, like the RPPC, may capture an improvised or poorly composed moment, indoors or outdoors, as well as presenting thoughtfully arranged subjects in ornate settings. Moreover, some presentations are staged, and have their roots in “earlier nineteenth-century customs, such as amateur theatricals.”¹⁰ Some studio settings, such as figure 26, suggest not the handsome parlor but the stage show or carnival backdrop. Rosamond Vaule, in As We Were: American Photographic Postcards, 1905–1930, documents the range of campy settings that were used in RPPC photographs, so this image is not unusual except for the fact that the romantic setting has been defined around the dog. A note on the back of this RPPC says, “1910, Silver Beach, St. Joe, Michigan.” Silver Beach was an amusement park on the shores of St. Joseph, Michigan, that operated from 1891 to 1971, and the website documenting its history notes that “it was common for courting couples to promenade along the boardwalk at night.” In figure 26, it seems that the young man had a date with his elderly dog, which leans comfortably against him, framed by the romantic crescent moon.

But even when the framing, posing, and editing of extraneous detail is casual, if not haphazard, the result can run the gamut from comical to compelling. Figure 27 is an example of the latter. The boy and his dog stand amid the rubble of a backyard and the back porch of a store. Behind the boy, on his left, is a crate that says “Borden’s Evaporated Milk,” and the box farther back on the porch behind him says “Ridgeway Tea.” There is adult-size laundry flapping on the line to his right. The boy is dressed in a school outfit that could have been found in the Sears catalogue anytime between 1909 and 1920, although the RPPC stamp box indicates that it could be as late as 1930. It appears that the dog is on a chain, which the boy may be gripping at the collar. This lonely-looking child appears to be Asian, making this a rare image for that reason alone, and he is biting his lower lip, as if apprehensive. Perhaps he is facing a first day of school and is marching off into the world from the rubble of his private world, with only the stalwart dog standing beside him for comfort. The dog, looking much like Little Orphan Annie’s Sandy, functions as a guardian figure in the photograph. Little Orphan Annie debuted as a newspaper strip in 1924, so the visual suggestion that Annie’s dog has made its way into this photograph as part of a deliberate communication is enticing. If the background were removed, and this child were simply standing in front of a tarp backdrop, or within a regular studio setting, his face would still be interesting but not nearly so compelling. It is the setting, in combination with the boy’s evocative face, that gives the image such implicit narrative poignancy. His context suggests a life lived amid workaday rough-and-tumble, where unseen adults have tossed crates and lumber and litter but have also taken the time to button his jacket and shoes. There is both care and carelessness here, and it takes both elements to produce an image like this.

FIGURE 26

Used RPPC, 1910, 7.5 × 13 cm. Silver Beach Amusement Park, St. Joseph, Michigan.

FIGURE 27

Unused RPPC, 1918–1930, 13.2 × 8 cm.

VERNACULAR AND VISUAL FOLKLORE

But we are not just looking at singular images; we are looking at them as a collection and a group from within which I am creating narrative juxtapositions. It’s important to suggest why and how a seemingly random collection can come to have a significance larger than any of its individual components. Photography is now so pervasively associated with advertising and consumer culture that it takes some deliberation to contemplate the trajectory of cultural influence represented by the technology. Although people wanted their portraits to look respectable, which means that there was a shared visual formula to follow, they also wanted to appear as individuals. Gwen Wright says that “middle-class Victorians wanted to believe that their houses were impressively unique. At the same time, certain patterns were necessary so that other people could clearly read the symbolism of social status and contented family life in the detail.”¹¹ This drive for a homogenous individuality is also a feature of these photographs. We can certainly understand this oxymoronic impulse today. As consumers, we are urged to purchase brand-name products in order to be individualistic, which is hardly possible if everyone in our income range is purchasing the same product. Then as now, consumers, and especially housewives, were urged to show how “smartly” they could dress, and how they could lift their families above the toil and trouble of everyday life simply by purchasing and maintaining the right accessories. Indeed, advertising promised “the maintenance of domestic harmony through intelligent consumption.”¹²

This consumerist vision is intimately linked to photography, as Susan Sontag and many others have pointed out. Photography and its products provide compelling visual instruction about what to want, and the visual desire produced through our consumerist culture becomes our ruling value. “Our very eyesight has been pressed into service as a mode of social control,” comments Laura Wexler. At the same time, there is something about photography that encourages us to take the appearance as sufficient representation or explanation. Because a photograph seems to make something visible and apparent, it becomes difficult to press upon that appearance for further insight. “The institutions of production, circulation and reception of photographs effectively discourage inquiry into how things got to be the way that they appear.”¹³ The seeming realism of the moment captured on film seems to trump all discussion, in part because we are so conditioned to seeing these images as dominant without recognizing the extent to which photographic images are also domineering and coercive.

In short, we fail to converse about photographs. Wexler suggests that our “active and selective refusal to read photography” can be called photographic anekphrasis, which is a play on the Greek word ekphrasis, meaning the skill of putting words to images. In Tender Violence: Domestic Visions in an Age of U.S. Imperialism, Wexler argues that our failure to discuss and read photographs as artifacts implicit in creating cultural meaning is a “class-and-race-based form of cultural domination. It represses the antidemocratic potential of photography and distorts the history of the significance of race and gender in the construction of the visual field.”¹⁴ Since its inception, photography has been a key element in the design and perpetuation of cultural hierarchies, but we have yet to grapple with this powerful visual rhetoric and its historical impact. Thus the role of photography in the expression and creation of American identity is at once fascinating and vexed. In her article “The Treacherous Medium: Why Photography Critics Hate Photographs,” Susie Linfield nicely summarizes the problem with photography, if not its critics, saying, “Who can admire an activity—much less an art—that so many people can do so damn well?”¹⁵ Are photographs documentary or aesthetic products? Although the debate has sometimes been framed around this dichotomy, the actuality is much richer. Alan Trachtenberg encourages us to study photographic “ensembles” that offer an “intelligible view of society implicit in the internal dialogue of images and texts, and their external dialogue with their times.”¹⁶ Observing Lewis Hine’s work as part of a visual narrative, Trachtenberg suggests both the enduring power of “social photography”—what Hine later called “moral realism”—and the accumulated narrative power of photographs gathered together. Photographic artifacts command a narrative presence on multiple fronts: as individual aesthetic expression, as symbols speaking from within a larger nexus, and as documents or records of times, events, and people.

Some photographs may partake of the dense intersection of both life story and public event, so that “social photography” refers to the effort to document historical realities, such as the work of Jacob Riis, who took his improvised camera equipment into New York City’s Lower East Side. But even at that early stage, the documentary function of photography was a complicated construct, for Riis staged some of his starkest images in order to enhance their implicit narrative power. And while Alfred Stieglitz was arguing that composition and tone virtually commanded photography into art, Lewis Hine was seeking that powerful intersection between the accidental and the composed in order to preserve the narrative power elicited by his images. For Hine, who often took great risks in taking pictures under arduous conditions, the accidental observations of the camera were part of its artistic and moral value.

In a later development, when Henry Luce planned Life magazine, he envisioned a format in which text and pictures worked together, seeing photographs—layout, composition, sequence—as commentary and documentary. Luce understood “sequenced photographs as rhetoric,” suggesting that “photographs are like written language that can be manipulated and that interpret events.”¹⁷ Initially, the photographer supplied the raw images but had little control over how they were used. W. Eugene Smith struggled to maintain editorial control over his images by researching and writing the printed text and selecting, editing, annotating, and arranging the pictures into a coherent essay. His work increasingly sought to guide the reader’s values and perceptions, controlling not only aesthetic and narrative reading but also political and ideological reading, and Smith’s passion for social justice led him into intricate manipulations of his images in the service of this vision. Hine was working toward the same kind of rhetorical control. His preference for the term “interpretive photography” never really caught on, “yet it was there from the beginning of his career and was an attempt to define, even at the start, the peculiar synthesis of aesthetic and social purposes that he was aiming at.”¹⁸

My collection does not meet the definition of “social photography,” because in the case of Riis, Hine, and Smith, the photographer’s intention is an integral part of how the picture is defined. These photographers were trying to reveal the simultaneity of personal lives and public forces, seeking ways to embrace the beauty, ambiguity, and narrative implications of the images they created. But family and private relationships are inextricably entwined with the larger matrix of cultural forces and public history, no matter what the photographer’s intent. To distinguish the largely anonymous photographers who produced the images in this book from the self-conscious artistry of people like Hine or Smith, my collection might best be referred to as “vernacular photography,” in that these images reveal “no apparent aesthetic ambition other than to record what passes in front of the camera with reasonable fidelity.”¹⁹ With the possible exception of images commissioned by wealthy people from famous photographers, vernacular photographs are truly “folk” images—by and of the people. At the conclusion of Counter-Archive, Paula Amad talks about what it means to reclaim the everyday life of artifacts (in her discussion, it’s film), noting that working with these materials is at once enchanting and boring, constituting a remarkable space where “lostness” and “foundness” exist side by side, where discovery creates the future, re-creates the past, and then complicates the future once more. The everyday vernacular life embodied in these folk relics contain culturally significant memory at the same time that they project our fantasies for the future.

The conventions of dog photography as they emerged in the mid- to late nineteenth century are not especially surprising, and it assists our interpretation to recognize that while certain mannerisms were adopted for the portraits, deviation from those mannerisms is also part of the communication. Here I borrow an insight from folklore studies by way of emphasizing the origin of these “folk” pictures and the narrative qualities highlighted by bringing forward groups of images. Generally speaking, the formulaic nature of folklore—which consists of patterned repetitions—is how storytelling was adapted for memory and oral performance. Those patterned repetitions, as well as departures from the formula, are part of the heritage of folktales. To adapt to the visual context, we can look for the pattern of presentation, finding insight in that pattern, and then discover further insight when the pattern of presentation is shifted or reinforced, despite the resulting incongruities.

The connection between vernacular photography and folklore is useful because, unlike Trachtenberg’s Civil War photographs, my pictures have no compelling cultural event that immediately supplies a primary context. They are everyday images of ordinary people whose names, families, and social location are lost to us. How, then, can we reclaim the communication represented by their presence? The answer is that groups of common images can communicate something that a solitary image cannot. I am reading my way through these photographs using the perspectives of both visual studies and animal studies, perspectives that further coalesce the message of these pictures.