Tender Violence

“A politically sophisticated analysis of photographs as portrayal and betrayal. . . . [Reveals] the necessity of theory that goes beyond the discrete deployments of gender, race, class, and ethnicity formulas.” — Journal of American History

“Wexler has forged a genuinely new method for the use of photographic images as primary resource material. This book is a true landmark in the field of American studies.” — Technology and Culture

“Superb.” — Feminist Studies

“In this fascinating study, [Wexler] probes the imperial logic lurking behind the domestic surfaces of over 150 photographs taken in the decades surrounding the turn of the twentieth century. . . . Removing the benign mask of these images by situating them within the discourses of racism, imperialism and eugenics, Wexler offers a groundbreaking account of how some of America’s first women photojournalists became complicit with America’s imperialistic project.” — Women’s Review of Books

“This book is a rigorous and outstanding examination of gender as a key contributor to specific visual outcomes. Tender Violence is a most welcome addition to the literature and is highly recommended for upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, and interested general readers.” — CHOICE

“[Shows] extraordinary scholarly imagination and acumen. . . . Wexler provides 'a means of seeing' photography that is so productive of insight as to almost reach past or out from the putative frames of her study. All those interested in a 'means of seeing' photography, domestic sentiment, imperialism and reform and seeing them as linked will be reading and rereading her wonderful book.” — American Quarterly

“A remarkable book that skillfully interweaves the traditionally separate realms of domesticity and foreign policy. Wexler’s brilliant analyses of photographs and texts reveal how women’s work of producing domestic images contributes to the production of national power at home and abroad. Tender Violence will profoundly change the way we see photographs through the lens of gender and the way photographs yield an intimate vision of imperial power.” — Amy Kaplan, Mt. Holyoke College

“Tender Violence lays bare the symbiotic ties between domestic vision and U.S. imperialism and reveals with painful precision how what these women did with their cameras served to impose and fortify social hierarchies. Wexler’s readings of photographs are astute: stunning examples of how attention to formal details can open into social narrative. This is one of the most beautifully architected academic books I know. Its portraits of early photographers and discussions of individual images build upon each other to produce a rich and ample sense of time and place so that reading it has often felt like inhabiting a world.” — Karen Sánchez-Eppler, author of Touching Liberty: Abolition, Feminism, and the Politics of the Body