American Photography: A Century of Images (01: The Developing Image, 1900-1934) Watch Online For Free

One picture is worth a thousand words, they say, and a simple snapshot can change a person, a society, and a country instantly. Trace photography's effects on American history from the early 20th century to the era of masterful manipulation. Fascinating and shocking, this documentary shows how a simple device caused serious changes in the face of war, boosted advertisers' wealth, and grew from an art form to an image builder. | Although photography was invented in the first half of the 19th century, the beginning of the 20th century marked extraordinary changes. For the first time in history, inexpensive hand-held cameras gave ordinary people the opportunity to create their own visual images. Suddenly pictures were everywhere: on passports, in the developing picture press, in science. World War I photographs convinced many reluctant Americans that they had a stake in this distant war. Advertisers embraced photography because of its ability to create a fantasy that seemed to be a plausible reality. By the end of the 1920s, photographs, little flat pictures that came to stand uniquely for the truth, had made their way into virtually every corner of contemporary life.