Pic from Cover of Picturing Men: A Century Male Relationships in Everyday American Photography

After systematically reviewing many thousands of images, as well as more conventional sources, I write in Picturing Men that American males, together in pairs and larger groups, once had professional portraits of themselves taken with a revealing frequency, in dramatic contrast to the virtual lack of the practice today. The poses they once commonly struck were even more revealing than the fact that the portrait was taken. With notable nonchalance, they might hold hands, sit on a companion’s lap, share a chair, drape their arms around each other, or perform for the camera what I’ve termed a “pageant of masculinity,” perhaps dressing up as cowboys or striking a frivolous pose that often included a “token of manhood” such as a cigar, liquor bottle, or firearm. Official athletic team portraits were once especially common scenes of closeness among males, with teammates sometimes lying atop each other. When George Eastman’s introduction of roll film in 1888 made it easier for amateurs to take pictures, the earliest snapshots also often showed males, boys and men alike, posing very close together, obviously delighting in one another’s company.

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