Documenting History: The Civil War

In undertaking the construction of a vast historical record, Brady's first concern was with its potential as a commercial venture; and in this sense, his project anticipates the spectacle of the motion picture (e.g., bringing the war "home" to a mass audience). Moreover, the impulse motivating the project was a totalizing one, a desire to capture the experience of the war in all of its diverse facets. Of course, the intervention of mediating factors--e.g., danger (the proximity of actual combat), expense, time--prevented the construction of a truly universal record (many of the photographs credited to Brady were taken by his assistants); and in fact, the photographs remaining today reflect the preferences of the individuals in charge (e.g., Brady, and competing figures such as Alexander Gardner and the Anthonys). As Davis (1991) argues, the "visual record . . . is remarkably fragmentary" relying heavily on the "eastern theater of the war" (134), while neglecting other campaigns deemed of lesser interest. This theme of selection--representing a larger whole through the display of a limited range of subjects--marks a common problem, one which can only be overcome through proper contextualization.

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