The Visual Voice: "Armchair Tourism," Cultural Authority, and the Depiction of the United States in Early Twentieth-Century Stereographs

212 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1997.My research draws upon the academic literature of visual culture and cultural geography. In analyzing the meanings, functions, and modes of communication of the stereograph sets, I take a symbolic interactionist perspective and use interpretative interactionist methods. By comparing and contrasting the two sets, I show how visual stereotyping facilitated a powerful mode of communication. I argue that the heightened realism of stereoscopic photography in combination with the authority of verbal descriptions and maps created a powerful, complex, and dynamic iconography. I show how the stereograph sets aided in the construction of social realities through the depiction of cultural geography and landscape. The results carry implications for collective memory, visual stereotyping, and the "sight-bite" culture of today's mass media and popular culture.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD