Rudolf Stumberger. Klassen-Bilder: Sozialdokumentarische Fotografie 1900-1945. Constance: Universitätsverlag Konstanz - UVK, 2007. 288 pp. EUR 29.00 (paper), ISBN 978-3-89669-639-7.

Reviewed by Martin M. Kley (Gettysburg College)
Published on H-German (June, 2009)
Commissioned by Susan R. Boettcher

Documentary Photography in the First Half of the Twentieth Century--A Comparative Study

Rudolf Stumberger's Klassen-Bilder: Sozialdokumentarische Fotografie 1900-1945 pursues and accomplishes an ambitious agenda. First, Stumberger revisits the most significant photographic projects on the underprivileged classes of the first half of the twentieth century with an interest in the possibilities of the medium at this time. Stumberger's photography exhibit, Menschen hinter Glas, aims to understand contemporary work in its architectural environment and is part of a quest for what he calls "neue sozialdokumentarische Fotografie." Second, Stumberger makes a strong and convincing case for a renewed convergence of photography and sociology, which he claims have common origins, but drifted apart over the last century, and indeed delivers what could be called a sociology of photographic practice. Third, the book fills a critical void by comparing five moments in the history of socially progressive photography in the United States, the German-speaking world, and the Soviet Union: the work of Jacob A. Riis (New York) and Hermann Drawe (Vienna) around the turn of the century; Lewis W. Hine and the struggle against child labor around 1910; New Deal photography; Soviet photography of the 1920s and 1930s; and the Arbeiterfotografie movement during the Weimar Republic, to which the author gives more attention than to the others.

Setting his ground thoroughly, Stumberger spends the first thirty pages positioning his study theoretically. With Pierre Bourdieu as his main point of reference, but strongly informed also by British cultural studies, Stumberger's concern is less with close analyses of photographs than with the conditions of their production, distribution, and reception. By contrast with earlier work on workers' photography in the German context during the 1970s, this study has to be viewed in the context of the emerging field of visual culture, which Stumberger aptly defines as an interdisciplinary field that deals with the social construction of visual experience. He frames his discussion with the assertion that photography assumed the role of a "visuelles Leitmedium" at the time, a role it lost to television in the second part of the century. Also central to his approach, and stated repeatedly throughout the book, is Bourdieu's assertion in Distinction (1984) that a class is defined as much by its perception as by its material being. Based on that insight, Stumberger sets out to analyze the various photographic practices under scrutiny with meticulous attention to the social and ideological mechanisms within which they took place.

The historical portion of the book largely delivers on its theoretical promises and premises, weaving together the social, economic, and aesthetic factors at work in the various photographic projects and movements under consideration. While all of them were directed at social change through photographic practice, and represented life at the bottom of society, Stumberger's analysis makes clear that only in the case of Weimar Arbeiterfotografie did those represented also do (some of) the representing. While Richard Hiepe saw the work of Hine as the first instance in which the working class was assigned true subjectivity, for example, Stumberger portrays his work as firmly placed within the American Progressive movement, which funded his projects and, according to Stumberger, constituted the working class as a historical object from the standpoint of the dominant class--a pattern that holds true for Soviet photography as well. The strength of this part of the book clearly lies in its interdisciplinary breadth rather than in in-depth discussions of individual photographers and their products, although the relevant scholarship on more detailed questions is amply discussed in the footnotes. Since the main emphasis falls on the conditions of production and distribution of photographs, however, their reception gets short shrift. Stumberger relies (too) heavily on Bourdieu and his contention that the lower classes have little to no interest in seeing their lives reproduced through photography. While this is an interesting contention, one that ultimately undermines the entire notion of working-class culture, the book presents little evidence to support it.

Another weakness in the work is the somewhat confusing chapter organization, which betrays its origins in the author's Habilitationsschrift. After the main historical part in chapter 2, chapter 3 largely revisits the same material, albeit with a greater focus on comparing the five photographic projects/movements. Some merits become apparent from this choice, as it allows the author to systematize the material to a greater extent than was possible in the historical part. However, the study also becomes repetitive, and simply rehashes its earlier insights, as in the categorization of the representation of class as "dangerous" (Riis), "problematic" (Hine), "struggling" (Weimar workers' photography), and "propagated" (Soviet photography), classifications that could easily have been worked into the previous chapter. Although its position within the chapter is not fully logical, the discussion of how photography as a medium compares to other media (press, radio, film, television) in regard to both economic and symbolic capital adds an important aspect to the book, since it stresses the capital-intensive quality of early photography. The detailed information Stumberger gathers on this point puts the size of the Weimar workers' photographic practice into sobering perspective: only the Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung, with a weekly circulation of up to five hundred thousand copies, was able to make significant inroads into the market of illustrated newspapers, which was overwhelmingly dominated by the interests of capital.  

A broadly researched and richly illustrated study with an interdisciplinary agenda, Klassen-Bilder fills a critical void by comparing and contrasting the various photographic projects and movements under scrutiny, although it may not present much new to experts on each of the five moments in photographic history. What is more, perhaps, in comparison to existing scholarship, which stems largely from the 1970s (at least on the topic of the Weimar worker photographers), it approaches its topic with an updated body of theory. It will be indispensable reading for anyone interested in the history of photography in the first half of the twentieth century or in the subject of visual culture and its relationship to class. The author plans to publish a second installment, which will consider socially progressive documentary photography during the second half of the twentieth century.

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Citation: Martin M. Kley. Review of Stumberger, Rudolf, Klassen-Bilder: Sozialdokumentarische Fotografie 1900-1945. H-German, H-Net Reviews. June, 2009.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=24693

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