audiobook Sri Lanka: The Invention of Enmity (Series on Religion; Nationalism; and Intolerance) by David Little in History

Description

During the first two decades of the twentieth century; the St. Louis Street Department generated one of the most extensive troves of photographs ever taken of the city. Ostensibly created to document municipal challenges and improvements; the images inadvertently captured richly detailed scenes of everyday life. Largely led by Charles Clement Holt (1866–1925); St. Louis’s photography operation expanded until it produced about six thousand images per year in 1914. Many of these photographs were lost; but a city historian salvaged a collection of three hundred glass plate negatives in the 1950s; which are now in the Missouri Historical Society collections. This small; but superb; group of photographs provides a wealth of information on the visual culture of St. Louis during a period of rapid transformation. Capturing the City is the first book to examine these photographs; placing the people and landscapes depicted within the broader context of a swiftly urbanizing and industrializing metropolis. Collected and analyzed here by Joseph Heathcott and Angela Dietz; the compelling images in Capturing the City reveal the national trend among cities to use the camera as a documentary tool. Reformers Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine imagined the camera as a truth-telling instrument and used their photographs to mobilize public consciousness. Across the nation; cities used photographers to document slums; workhouses; and crime scenes; as well as municipal improvements like street lighting; pavement; and model housing. In this vein; Holt and his staff showcased both the challenges and the successes of government action in St. Louis. Consistent with their Progressive-era peers; their efforts contributed to the record of ongoing public works while shaping the narrative of urban progress itself.