visual culture — Bunk History

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Caricature of Oscar Wilde in between a sunflower in a vase with the U.S. dollar symbol on it, and a lion with sunflower petals for a mane.

The Wilde Woman and the Sunflower Apostle: Oscar Wilde in the United States

Victoria Dailey looks back at Oscar Wilde’s wild ride through the United States in the early 1880s.

by Victoria Dailey via Los Angeles Review of Books on February 8, 2020

The Bullion Mine, Virginia City, Nevada, in a village at the foot of a mountain.

Gold Diggers on Camera

Creating the myth of the gold rush with the help of daguerreotypists.

by Jane Lee Aspinwall via Lapham’s Quarterly on October 28, 2019

How the Camera Introduced Americans to Their Heroines

A new show at the National Portrait Gallery spotlights figures including Harriet Beecher Stowe, Lucretia Mott and Margaret Fuller.

by Meilan Solly via Smithsonian on July 9, 2019

What Maketh a Man

How queer artist J.C. Leyendecker invented an iconography of twentieth-century American masculinity.

by Tyler Malone via Lapham’s Quarterly on June 10, 2019

An Unreconstructed Nation: On Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s “Stony the Road”

A new history of Reconstruction traces the roots of American “respectability” politics through artwork.

by Robert D. Bland via Los Angeles Review of Books on May 10, 2019

How a Small-Town Navy Vet Created Rock’s Most Iconic Surrealist Posters

The story of one of rock's most prolific poster artists.

by Ben Marks via Collectors Weekly on March 28, 2019

The Drunkard’s Progress

Two hundred years ago, it was hard for Americans to miss the message that they had a serious drinking problem.

by Benjamin Breen on January 17, 2019

A Wretched Situation Made Plain on Paper

How an engraving of a slave ship helped the abolition movement.

by Cheryl Finley via Lapham’s Quarterly on July 25, 2018

The Premiere of 'Four Women Artists'

In this 1977 documentary, the spirit of Southern culture is captured through four Mississippi artists who tell their stories.

by Nicole Rudick via The Paris Review on May 29, 2018

Are Our Genes Really Our Fate?

DNA’s visual culture and the construction of genetic truth.

by Kathleen Pierce via Nursing Clio on April 24, 2018

Civil War era envelope with a political cartoon with Confederate leaders hung as traitors.

When the Government Refused to Use Slavery to Recruit Soldiers, the Media Had No Qualms

With questionable motives, America finally saw black Union soldiers living and dying alongside their white countrymen.

by Brendan Seibel via Timeline on April 17, 2018

The Heart of the Matter: A History of Valentine Cards

A digital exhibit from the collections of the Strong National Museum of Play.

by Strong National Museum Of Play via Google Arts and Culture on April 11, 2018

Open books.

James Baldwin: ‘I Did Not Want to Weep for Martin, Tears Seemed Futile’

In memory of Martin Luther King Jr, a look back on his funeral.

by Jason Sokol via Literary Hub on April 4, 2018

How Portraiture Gave Rise to the Glamour of Guns

American portraiture with its visual allure and pictorial storytelling made gun ownership desirable.

by Kim Sajet via Smithsonian on March 23, 2018

Uncola: Seven-Up, Counterculture and the Making of an American Brand

Advertisements for the soft drink presented it as a soda revolution.

by Claire Payton via The Devil's Tale on December 4, 2017

The 1960s Photographer Who Documented the Peace Sign as a Political Symbol

Jim Marshall photographed the spread of the peace sign between 1961 and 1968, with his images now published for the first time by Reel Art Press.

by Allison C. Meier via Hyperallergic on October 20, 2017

Stereograph titled 'The Toucans' depicting three toucans and a snake amid plants and rocks

Stereographs Were the Original Virtual Reality

The shocking power of immersing oneself in another world was all the buzz once before—about 150 years ago.

by Clive Thompson via Smithsonian on September 21, 2017

Woodcuts and Witches

On the witch craze of early modern Europe, and how the concurrent rise of the mass-produced woodcut helped forge the archetype of the broom-riding crone.

by Jon Crabb via The Public Domain Review on May 4, 2017

The Rise of the Image: Every NY Times Front Page Since 1852 in Under a Minute

Every single New York Times front page since 1852 in under a minute. Hint: Pay attention to the images!

by Christopher Jobson via Colossal on February 22, 2017

Touching Sentiment: The Tactility of Nineteenth-Century Valentines

Sentimental or “fancy” valentines, as they were called, were harbingers of hope, fondness, and desire.

by Christina Michelon via Commonplace on December 1, 2016

"Nature’s Nation": The Hudson River School and American Landscape Painting, 1825–1876

How American landscape painters, seen as old-fashioned and provincial, gained cultural power by glorifying expansionism.

by Linda Ferber via Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History on May 1, 2016

Looping sky writing from an airplane above a city.

Notes Toward a History of Skywriting

A language of the air.

by D. Graham Burnett via Cabinet on December 15, 2015

How the Military Waged a Graphic-Design War on Venereal Disease

"Fool the Axis—use Prophylaxis!"In many ways, such a coordinated public effort to alter sexual behavior was unprecedented.

by Hunter Oatman-Stanford via Collectors Weekly on February 11, 2015

Graphic of NRA Blue Eagle, circa. 1933.

The Other NRA (Or How the Philadelphia Eagles Got Their Name)

Before it ubiquitously meant the National Rifle Association, the NRA had a very different meaning.

by Rebecca Onion via Slate on May 22, 2013

Paul Philippoteaux's cyclorama of the Battle of Gettysburg depicting the Union and Confederate armies fighting.

The Great Illusion of Gettysburg

How a re-creation of its most famous battle helped erase the meaning of the Civil War.

by Yoni Appelbaum via The Atlantic on February 6, 2012

How Poverty Was, and Was Not, Pictured Before the Civil War

Images were important in defining the Republic between the Revolution and the Civil War and they distinctively both did and did not show Americans in need.

by Jonathan Prude via Commonplace on April 12, 2010

Sports Illustrated cover featuring a model in a swimsuit.

The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue

An intellectual history.

by Bryan Curtis via Slate on February 9, 2010

Lee Barracks at the United States Military Academy.

West Point Restores Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's Portrait

A painting of Gen. Robert E. Lee in his Confederate uniform is back on display at West Point's library.

by Michael Hill via AP News on September 2, 2025

Walt Whitman photographed with a cardboard prop of a butterfly. Library of Congress

Walt Whitman Used Photography to Curate His Image – but Ended Up More Lost than Found

Whitman curated his image through photography, blending truth and artifice, but like today’s selfies, found more confusion than clarity.

by Trevin Corsiglia via The Conversation on May 29, 2025

George Floyd and the Writing of the Final Chapter of Richmond's Confederate Monuments

Do we as Americans have the strength to confront our complicated past?

by Kevin M. Levin via Civil War Memory on May 25, 2025

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