Cara Finnegan
Professor, Communication
Throughout U.S. history, presidents have participated in photography as subjects, producers, and consumers of photographs. In fact, the medium of photography and the institution of the presidency largely grew up together. This presentation explores how presidents engaged with photography at moments of dramatic change in the medium: at the time of its invention, during the rise of the news image and candid photo, and in the digital age. We'll begin by exploring the first photographic practice to become popular in the United States, the daguerreotype, and learn how then-former President John Quincy Adams felt about his often fraught experiences with the new medium. Then we'll talk about how the rise of the so-called “candid camera” era of photography meant that presidents such as Franklin Roosevelt had to grapple with the effects of photography’s new portability and its potential invasions of privacy. We'll conclude by discussing how Barack Obama both exploited the new social media photography and at the same time could not entirely control it.
Cara Finnegan is a scholar of rhetoric, public address, and the history of photography, and her research and teaching explore the role of photography as a tool for public life. Her books examine the production, composition, circulation, and reception of photographs at specific moments in U.S. history. Her book Photographic Presidents: Making History from Daguerreotype to Digital (University of Illinois Press, 2021) is the first book-length history of presidential photography. Finnegan holds affiliated appointments in the Center for Writing Studies, Gender and Women's Studies, and Art History.
