Abstract:
This thesis examines the little-explored genre of the occupational daguerreotype portrait in antebellum America as a means of self-representation and as an individual’s assertion of worthy acceptance in the middle-class. It simultaneously explores the social and economic conditions under which the photographic medium was introduced to American society, arguing that middle-class standards of respectable self-representation directly influenced the portraits of citizens, especially working-class workers, as they chose to demonstrate pride in their labor. More important, antebellum skilled artisans, in choosing to represent themselves with the “tools of their trade,” demonstrated that labor was fundamental to their individual identity and the identity of the nation as a whole.
