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An 'Ever Recurring Controversy': John Thompson, W.J. Stillman and the Boot Blacks

This essay extends and develops pioneering research on nineteenth-century British photography. Based around a study of the classic street photography of John Thompson, published in Street Life in Photography (1877), and a close reading of the extensive debate about photography at this time, which was sparked by the criticisms of the medium published by the artist, journalist and diplomat William James Stillman, this essay revisits the now familiar view of Thompson, and others who worked in a similar mode – sometimes called ‘proto-documentary’. It has become routine to view this type of photographic work as displaying the poor for the attention of the state and middle-class reformers. In contrast, this essay reflects on the agency that speaks back from these photographs, giving back to the street poor a voice or vision.

Drawing on Jacques Rancière’s philosophy of equality, this essay revises the now dominant view and suggests that Thompson’s images are much more ambivalent about the street figures depicted than is usually assumed. This paper employs a detailed knowledge of archival sources to argue that Thompson is drawn to street life and he finds his own enterprise implicated in these precarious trades of the metropolis. Focussing on Street Life in Photography and the debate in The Photographic News, this article reframes the historiographical debate about nineteenth-century photography and suggests a new approach to the material. An earlier version of this essay was presented as a paper for a conference in Tarragona, Spain and published in Catalan (Ribalta ed., Per Què La Fotografia Es Avui Més Important Com A Document Que Mai 2012).