Snapshot Chronicles: Inventing the American Photo Album

by Barbara Levine (Curator), Stephanie Snyder, Matthew Stadler (Contributor)

Today, the photo album is something we practically take for granted, and "scrapbooking" is a billion dollar industry with its own television network. It was not always so. Before the camera, ordinary families had little more than the family Bible, a portrait of grandpa, and a drawer full of documents. Then Eastman Kodak introduced the Brownie, giving Americans the means to document and record their daily lives. Hundreds of thousands of these cameras were produced, and as a result small collections of photographs were assembled and preserved in an astonishing assortment of albums, with photographs as the raw material for collages, constructions, and family histories.

Snapshot Chronicles is a visual exploration of the creative outpouring made possible by the camera. Friends, family, travel, domestic life, special occasions, the workplace, farm and city lifethese were all intermingled in early albums in surprising and dynamic forms. Men, women, and even children became the creators of their own visual biographies, and documenters of previously unprecedented aspects of American life.

Four essayists weave together the history of the photo album, making them not just a part of our past but a significant aspect of Americana. Snapshot Chronicles is designed by noted graphic designer Martin Venezky (It Is Beautiful...Then Gone).

Copublished with the Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery, Reed College.

Genres: Photography, Art

200 pages, Hardcover

First published January 19, 2006

About the author

Barbara Levine runs project b, a curatorial services company specializing in archives, collections, vernacular photography, and artist projects. She was formerly director of exhibitions at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Reviews

[Darin Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am happy that this book found me. It is very interesting look at how the emerging art form photography bred the art of creating photo albums. I am proud to have saved many photo albums. There's nothing like opening a vintage album for the first time...the feel...the smell and the photos from a time gone by.

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this collection of old photos and albums that had nothing to do with the authors, some of the explanations were too verbose, but the photos were fun to look at. I kept expecting to see my parents or grandparents. It was amazing that over 100 years ago people cut up or ripped photos and arranged them decoratively like scrapbookers of today.