Doctored: The Medicine of Photography in Nineteenth-Century America

In Doctored, Tanya Sheehan takes a new look at the relationship between photography and medicine in American culture, from the nineteenth century to the present. Focusing on Civil War and postbellum Philadelphia, Doctored explores the ways in which medical models and metaphors helped strengthen the professional legitimacy of the citys commercial photographic community at a time when it was not well established. By reading the trade literature and material practices of portrait photography and medicine in relation to one another, this book further shows how their interaction defined the space of the urban portrait studio as well as the physical and social effects of studio operations. Integrating the methods of social art history, science studies, and media studies, Doctored thus reveals important connections between the professionalization of American photographers and the construction of photographys cultural identity.