Alfred Stieglitz andThe Steerage: An empirio-critical correlation

Abstract

Abstract The years 1890–1910 saw Alfred Stieglitz's philosophy and photography evolve from a reactive and experiential agenda to an active, conceptual, and economical one. The fulcrum of this evolution is his perpetually controversial image, The Steerage (figure I). In the present discussion the author proposes to reinterpret the genesis of this photograph in the context of turn-of-the-century scientific thought and, in the process of applying this intellectual model, clarify the context and meaning of works that preceded and followed it. Stieglitz's role as an avatar of modernism is thus problematized (at present his fame rests more on his promotional abilities than on his philosophical or even aesthetic stance), but also given a more complex, textual focus. This is one that current Stieglitz scholarship lacks, yet sorely needs.