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Book Review
Canada and the United States
John Ibson. Picturing Men: A Century of Male Relationships in Everyday American Photography. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. 2002. Pp. xix, 237. $32.95.
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American men of an earlier era were frequently photographed in pairs and small groups, John Ibson observes, and they assumed poses and guises that would surprise viewers today. Nineteenth-century studio photographs show men holding hands, sitting on one another's lap, inclining heads together, even kissing. Between the late nineteenth century and the outbreak of World War I, they also assumed a variety of theatrical stances ranging from mock combat with raised fists or pistols to mock weddings with the bride in drag. In team portraits prior to the 1920s, young men routinely draped arms across comrades' shoulders and often sprawled on top of one another. In snapshots of the same period, men hugged affectionately and unself-consciously. Clearly, Ibson argues, the conventions by which American men have presented themselves before the camera have changed enormously over time. |
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