Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review"Kerry Ross uses amateur photography splendidly as a lens on the emergence of dynamic consumer cultures in Japan before World War II. Gender, marketing, aesthetics, work and leisure, and 'middlebrow' aesthetics all enter the picture—making for a major contribution to our growing appreciation of early 20th-century modernity."—John W. Dower, MIT
"This study is highly original and provides a much needed account of prewar Japanese photography as a modernity-making social formation. The research opens up whole new worlds to historians of Japanese culture, commerce, gender, everyday life, and even nationalism/democracy."—Paul D. Barclay, Associate Professor of History, Lafayette College
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Photography for Everyone provides thought-provoking analysis of the commercial and cultural forces that shaped amateur photography, adding much to our understanding of complex and sometimes competing photographic practices that developed in Japan in the 1920s and 1930s."––Kari Sheperdson-Scott,
Pacific Affairs"Kerry Ross uses the rise of amateur photography in Japan before World War II to explore the meaning of 'serious leisure' in a non-Western setting, and her work is a welcome contribution to understanding how members of the urban middle class chose to spend their free time. Her analyses of gender, how-to literature, voluntary associations, and aesthetics expand and enrich the growing field of leisure studies."—Steven Gelber, Santa Clara University
"Ross's
Photography for Everyone is a must-read for anyone interested in the impact of industry and the adoption of state-of-the-art technology by everyday Japanese consumers at the dawn of the twentieth century. It is also relevant to historians of photography, as it opens windows into the development of the photographic industry, and its understanding (and even grooming) of its consumers into gendered, technologically advanced, and democratic participants in the production of visual culture in the first decades of the twentieth century."—Celio H. Barreto,
H-JapanTable of ContentsContents and AbstractsIntroduction: Introduction chapter abstract
The Introduction familiarizes readers with the topics of the early twentieth-century photography market and amateur practices in Japan by situating the project historiographically in relation to three fields of scholarship: the history of photography; the history of retailing, consumption, and gender; and the history of middle-class culture.
1A Retail Revolution: Male Shoppers and the Creation of the Modern Shop chapter abstract
Chapter 1 argues that the camera industry, alongside department stores, was at the forefront of a retail revolution focusing on male shoppers from the turn of the twentieth century. It offers a cultural history of retail practices in urban Japan, focusing on Konishi Roku (today's Konica Minolta), Japan's leading camera producer, whose headquarters and main shop were located in Nihonbashi, Tokyo.
2Chapter 2. Photography for Everyone: Women, Hobbyists, and Marketing Photography chapter abstract
Chapter 2 explores the camera market's segmentation into two distinctly gendered consumer markets, the casual photography market and the amateur photography market, and the innovative ways that the camera industry marketed its products to these very different consumer groups. In the drive for profit, the camera industry cultivated a casual photography market that promised photography was for everyone. In reality, sales in this market were based on an assumed female consumer, one who lacked photographic knowledge and simply consumed film by taking pictures willy-nilly. However, in fostering the amateur or hobby market, the camera industry focused on the male consumer, addressed as a knowledgeable man, or at least one seeking to become a knowledgeable man, invested in honing his skills in the art and technology of photography.
3Instructions for Life: How-to Literature and Hobby Photography chapter abstract
Chapter 3 investigates the role of how-to books in popularizing photography, both in terms of their explicit, stated purpose to teach photographers how to take and make photographs and the ways in which they suggested to readers the appropriate place of photography in their leisure time and in their homes.
4Democratizing Leisure: Camera Clubs and the Popularization of Photography chapter abstract
Chapter 4 explores the role of camera clubs in the spread of photography, in particular, the ways in which participation offered members the opportunity to socialize with their peers and to congregate around a shared leisure-time activity. They also served as a venue to rehearse the democratic principles of participatory governance, such as voting for officers, opportunities denied to most in the public realm of politics.
5Making Middlebrow Photography: The Aesthetics and Craft of Amateur Photography chapter abstract
Chapter 5 considers the actual pictures that amateurs took with an aim to understand popular aesthetics of the time. Amateur photography, not only as final product but also as a total process, provided hobbyists with an aesthetic language that matched their middle-class ideals: an active place in the world of consumerism befitting their newfound incomes and an absorbing activity that placed value on craftsmanship.
Epilogue: Epilogue chapter abstract
The Epilogue offers a concise account of the wartime restrictions on consumption and photographic practice and the rapid rebuilding of the photography industry immediately after the war.
