Californie à Paris: Photographic Circulation and the Making of Imperial Identities, c. 1900
This article proposes a case study of the souvenir album Californie: Illustration pour l’Exposition de Paris 1900 with the aim to trace how photographic illustration catered to both Californian promotion in Europe and community-building on the West Coast in a period of emerging US imperialism. Analy...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Association Française d'Etudes Américaines
2024-12-01
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| Series: | Transatlantica |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/24151 |
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| Summary: | This article proposes a case study of the souvenir album Californie: Illustration pour l’Exposition de Paris 1900 with the aim to trace how photographic illustration catered to both Californian promotion in Europe and community-building on the West Coast in a period of emerging US imperialism. Analyzing the sequence of images, their mise-en-scène alongside elaborate descriptions and translations into French and German, the article reconstructs the emergence of a shared narrative of the imagined West, with a specifically “Californian” visual vocabulary. Special emphasis is placed on the contributors’ background and their relationships to local photographer organizations, notably the California Camera Club, which furnished the vast majority of photographic materials for commercial state publications in the early twentieth century. Promotional albums like Californie provided rare opportunities to spread the productions of a remote photographer community to European publics. At the same time, the very format of the reproducible promotional album transported an imperial vision back to Californian residents, thus shaping local understandings of California’s place in the European world. |
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| ISSN: | 1765-2766 |