In the late nineteenth century, corporate managers began to rely on photography for everything from motion studies to employee selection to advertising. This practice gave rise to many features of modern industry familiar to us today: consulting, "scientific" approaches to business practice, illustrated advertising, and the use of applied psychology. In this imaginative study, Elspeth H. Brown examines the intersection of photography as a mass technology with corporate concerns about efficiency in the Progressive period. Discussing, among others, the work of Frederick W. Taylor, Eadweard Muybridge, Frank Gilbreth, and Lewis Hine, Brown explores this intersection through a variety of examples, including racial discrimination in hiring, the problem of photographic realism, and the gendered assumptions at work in the origins of modern marketing. She concludes that the goal uniting the various forms and applications of photographic production in that era was the increased rationalization of the modern economy through a set of interlocking managerial innovations, technologies that sought to redesign not only industrial production but the modern subject as well.

Solidly grounded in the cultural, political and economic history of the Second Industrial Revolution, The Corporate Eye broadens and deepens our understanding of photography's significance to American enterprise. This work resonates critically and valuably with earlier, heralded studies by David Nye and Roland Marchand, among others, by exploring fresh terrains and refining conceptual frameworks. -- Philip Scranton, series editor, Studies in Industry and Society

About the Author
Elspeth H. Brown is an associate professor of history at the University of Toronto and the director of the Centre for the Study of the United States, Munck Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto.

Reviews
A highly welcome contribution to the field of business history as well as American visual culture. Business History Review 2006 This highly readable, interdisciplinary book provides insights into both the history of American economic development and the history of photography. Afterimage 2006 A unique and interdisciplinary analysis of the intersection between visual and commercial culture in the USA. History of Photography 2006 The Corporate Eye is American studies and interdisciplinary cultural history at its best. Journal of American History 2006 This is a book whose 'big picture' is fully in focus. Technology and Culture 2006 Meticulous research and rich contextualization... A welcome and imaginative addition to the history of visual technologies and commercial history. Industrial Archaeology 2007


Awards
Winner of PROSE Award for Business, Management and Accounting 2006 (United States).



Book Information
ISBN 9780801889707
Author Elspeth H. Brown
Format Paperback
Page Count 348
Imprint Johns Hopkins University Press
Publisher Johns Hopkins University Press
Weight(grams) 522g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 20mm