'Adventures into camera-land;' women, image-making, and the social environment of Chicago camera clubs at the turn-of-the-century

The camera club functioned for 19th-century Chicagoans as a site of learning, socializing, creating, and viewing. As such, this site provides an intricate and complex case study through which to examine photographic culture, influences and images. Amateur female photographers became involved in the clubs in part because of their artistic backgrounds and impulses just at a time when Chicago clubs were in need of enthusiasm and were embracing a pictorial aesthetic. Eventually, however, in response to art photography movements elsewhere, Chicago's turn towards a populist aesthetic and embrace of hobbyists at the turn of the century did much to exclude women practitioners from the camera club environment. By looking at the waxing and waning of Chicago female practitioners as active producers in the camera clubs, this study will provide a distinct focal point from which to view turn-of-the century culture and photographic history anew.