Muybridge and Mobility

Tim Cresswell, John Ott

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9780520382442
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Photography

A cultural geographer and an art historian offer fresh interpretations of Muybridge's famous motion studies through the lenses of mobility and race. In 1878, Eadweard Muybridge successfully photographed horses in motion, proving that all four hooves leave the ground at once for a split second during full gallop. This was the beginning of Muybridge's decades-long investigation into instantaneous photography, culminating in his masterpiece Animal Locomotion. Muybridge became one of the most influential photographers of his time, and his stop-motion technique helped pave the way for the motion-picture industry, born a short decade later. Coauthored by cultural geographer Tim Cresswell and art historian John Ott, this book reexamines the motion studies as historical forms of "mobility, " in which specific forms of motion are given extraordinary significance and accrued value. Through a lively, interdisciplinary exchange, the authors explore how mobility is contextualized within the transformations of movement that marked the nineteenth century and how mobility represents the possibilities of social movement for African Americans. Together, these complementary essays look to Muybridge's works as interventions in knowledge and experience and as opportunities to investigate larger social ramifications and possibilities.

INDEX

Abe Edgington (horse), 1, 9–10, 19

Adey, Peter, 54

African Americans: Animal Locomotion (Muybridge) (1887), 103, 114n2; antidiscrimination laws, 64; Belmont Park, 61, 63, 96, 103; Black suffrage, 64; the Gilded Age, 53–54, 64–65; harness races, 60–61, 63; Muybridge, Eadweard, 85, 103; Philadelphia, 54–55, 61–66, 69, 75–76, 77, 102–3; photography, 55, 78, 103–4, 127n161; physiognomies, 95–96; pugilism, 62–63, 65; social mobilities, 5, 53–55, 60, 75, 77–79, 83–84, 102–4, 114n22; Spencer, Frank, 86; Spirit of the Times (newspaper), 60; stereotypes, 84–87, 91, 93, 95; thoroughbred races, 65, 94, 105; transportation, 61, 64, 103; University of Pennsylvania, 64, 69, 103; white bodies, 103. See also Black athletes; Black boxers; Black jockeys; Black mobilities; Jim Crow; race

Allen, Harrison, 86–87

Alta California (magazine), 14, 18

American Progress (Gast) (painting), 30–31

American seat, 70–71, 90

American Turf, The (Davis) (1907), 79

American Turf, The (Weeks) (1898), 73–74, 78, 104–5

Animal Locomotion (Muybridge) (1887): African Americans, 103, 114n2; Annie G. (horse), 58fig., 69–70, 72fig.; Bailey, Ben, 53, 56–57, 63, 66, 75–76, 87–88, 93, 100, 104; Black athletes, 53–56, 66, 68–84, 87, 102–5; Black boxers, 54, 63; Black jockeys, 53–54, 66, 71, 73, 105; Black mobilities, 55, 75, 102–3; Brown, Elspeth, 115n5; Dover Books/motion studies of animals, 3; Lizzie M. (horse)/Nellie Rose (horse), 97; nakedness, 98; race, 53–54, 55, 63, 66, 85–87; thoroughbred races, 94; white bodies, 53. See also individual plates

animals. See motion studies of animals “Animals and Movements, Horses, Canter; saddle; gray horse Smith” (plate), 94–95

“Animals and Movements, Horses, Ga...