Historical Overview
Bish was not by himself in his pioneering endeavors as there are other known
local men who were around Chippewa Falls and mid-western Wisconsin. About
150 miles to the south in Wisconsin Dells, H.H. Bennett, a civil war veteran,
was using photographs to capture nature along the Wisconsin River.1
He is credited with inventing “The Snapper” which allowed him
to capture objects in motion without the object appearing blurred. To the
south-west by about 50 miles in the town of Black River Falls, Wisconsin,
Charles J. Van Schaick, had opened a studio and was also taking photographs
of the town and surrounding community. All of these men were pioneers and
innovators who today we are very much indebted to their willingness to experiment
and hold true to their passion.
These photographers were pioneers taking part in a greater movement taking
place across the world. This movement was journalism. Having begun before
photography, journalism was just starting to mature into a more professional
form of communication when photography came about. Journalism was not as polished
of a profession as what one thinks of today. Journalism went through a time
of internal regression on account of the rise in what was known as “yellow
journalism.” “Yellow journalism” would be what we would
the modern equivalent to the tabloids. This was a marketing scheme newspapers
across the country were doing to keep and increase readership. “Trumpeting
their concern for ‘the people,’ yellow journalists at the same
time choked up the news channels on which the common people depended with
a shrieking, gaudy, sensational-loving, devil-may-care kind of journalism.”2
The more “sensational” the story was the more likely it was that
the public would purchase that newspaper. This caused stories to be embellished
and tarnished the belief in true “news,” uncompromised by personal
persuasion. Photography then became the balancing factor to this downward
slope. There was a feeling that photographs exposed the story as it unfolded
and/or shortly thereafter holding the journalist accountable for their report
of the incident.
Due to photography developing the time journalism was maturing as the information
authority, spinning off from these two was the very beginning stages of photojournalism.
It was not yet labeled as “photojournalism” but most definitely
this was a profession that would soon explode early at the start of the Twentieth
Century.
| click on underlined links to explore more text |
| -1826- Photography Invented -1830- First Newspaper for One Cent in Philadelphia -1833, September- New York Sun "It Shines for ALL" was founded by Benjamin Day (first attempt to carry news to the masses) -1839, January 7- Daguerreotype glass plates were invented in Paris -1849,March 4- Alexander Wolcott and John Johnson openeded the world's first portrait studio in New York, New York, using the daguerreotype. -1840- In London William Henry Fox Talbot produces a positive image print from a negative -1851- Frederick Scott Archer introduced the collodion process -1853- An estimated 3 million Daguerreotypes per year were being produced in the United States alone -Mid-1850- Photography studios were established in every good-sized city of the United States and Canada |
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1861-1865
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-1861- Woodcuts were used in newspapers much more regularly after 1861 to depict battle scenes -1862- Civil War Soldiers and U.S. Citizens could purchase through mail order any of the 570 Brady-produced views of the implements of war |
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1863-1886
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-1880s- Fast dry-plates had been developed -1880- The first printing-press photo of a "shantytown" appeared in New York -Mid-1880s- Drags in the world of Yellow Journalism 3 -1885- Charles J. Van Schaick opens a photography studio in Black River Falls, Wisconsin where he was a photographer for over 50 years -1886- H.H. Bennett was the photographer who invented "the Snapper." |
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| -1887- A.A. Bish arrives in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin -1888- The Sun published 12 drawings by Jacob A. Riis of the "slums" of New York -1888- Eastman markets his Kodak camera that used a roll of film -1890- The New York Tribune uses screen printing, invented by Stephen H. Horgan, which allowed for photographs to be published along with newspaper text |
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1894-1914
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-1894- A.A. Bish opens Bish Studios on Central Street -1898- The use of halftone screening used in an 1880 newspaper evolved enough to allow the photographing and printing of the Spanish-American War -1908, September 14- The First School of Journalism in the World opens at the University of Missouri--Columbia |
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| -1915- The speculated year of Bish's departure from Chippewa Falls |
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