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Burgess, Rebekah E. M.. "Collecting Agency: Reversing The Camera’s Gaze In Early Twentieth-Century Lowell, Massachusetts," Boston University, May 2008. Advisor: Kim Sichel
This project combines social and photographic histories in order to recast and expand our visual assumptions about industrial life at the turn-of-the-twentieth century. Through careful examination of five unique photographic case studies taken in Lowell, Massachusetts in the early 1900s, we change our contemporary perception of what industrial life looked like one-hundred years ago.
Previously published imagery of Lowell, specifically, and of turn-of-the-century American mill workers, in general, has primarily taken the form of social reform survey photography, focusing on the urban industrial environment of textile mills and its detrimental effects on mill workers. These images that comprise our contemporary vision of turn-of-the-century industrial life were created in order to induce change in labor practices. They constructed a much-needed argument. Two of the photographic case studies that constitute this dissertation, created by Lewis Hine and the Reverend George Kenngott in 1911 and 1909, respectively, approach the residents of Lowell through the social reform lens.
The three other case studies examined in this project-the Camera, John Coggeshall, and George Russell Collections-were created by amateur photographers and commercial practitioners based in Lowell during the early twentieth century. These collections deepen our perception of Lowell’s industrial life as previously seen through the prism of social reform. Through these three disparate collections we are able to reverse or return the gaze of Lowell’s turn-of-the-century industrial worker and city resident. Instead of being reported on, they are documenting themselves. These industrial, commercial, and amateur images allow the workers a clearer sense of agency and empowerment; a picture of their destiny crafted by themselves.
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