The commerce of vision : optical culture and perception in antebellum America / Peter John Brownlee.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Brownlee, Peter John, author.

Series:

Early American studies

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Visual communication--United States--History--19th century.

Visual communication.

Visual perception--Economic aspects--United States--History--19th century.

Visual perception.

Commerce.

History.

United States--Commerce--History--19th century.

United States.

United States--Economic conditions--To 1865.

Economic conditions.

Vision.

Economic history.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

249 pages : illustrations ; 27 cm.

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2018]

Summary:

When Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in 1837 that "Our Age is Ocular," he offered a succinct assessment of antebellum America's cultural, commercial, and physiological preoccupation with sight. In the early nineteenth century, the American city's visual culture was manifest in pamphlets, newspapers, painting exhibitions, and spectacular entertainments; businesses promoted their wares to consumers on the move with broadsides, posters, and signboards; and advances in ophthalmological sciences linked the mechanics of vision to the physiological functions of the human body. Within this crowded visual field, sight circulated as a metaphor, as a physiological process, and as a commercial commodity. Out of the intersection of these various discourses and practices emerged an entirely new understanding of vision. The Commerce of Vision integrates cultural history, art history, and material culture studies to explore how vision was understood and experienced in the first half of the nineteenth century.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780812250428

0812250427

OCLC:

1030385637