Photographic Privilege at the World’s Columbian Exposition

In Glimpses of the World’s Fair, one of several photographically illustrated souvenir books that were published in commemoration of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, the caption appended to one photograph draws attention to a figure within the frame that the reader is encouraged to regard as ubiquitous. (fig. 2.1) “The ever-present ‘Kodak’ fiend,” the caption reads, referencing a woman dressed in black. Her back to the camera, this “fiend” is engrossed by a camera of her own. Her body hunches over it as she frames her shot, ostensibly a casually posed picture of two men who are seated