About this Event
Long before TV series or digital humanities, people were already finding new ways to tell the story of the past. A century ago, as America celebrated its 150th anniversary, visual technologies such as photography, film and lantern slides – hand-painted or transparent images projected for audiences – were transforming how we visualise history. These media opened up new ways to show the story of the events and people of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Jennifer Tucker, history professor at Wesleyan University, explores the 1920s – a pivotal decade when teachers, filmmakers, historians, psychologists, curators and librarians drew on archives from around the world to build the first large-scale picture and cinema collections of US history. Their work helped shape how Americans remembered, told and debated the complexities of the nation's past – from stories of empire and revolution to the Civil War and frontier West and beyond – through visual media. The interwar period marked an important moment in the transformation of visuality and the study and teaching of the past, from the invention of photography to online history today. This workshop paper focuses on the image of Britain and British society in US educational and theatrical history films and pictorial histories, ca. 1915–30; years of shifting diplomatic and economic relations between the US and UK.
Speaker Biography:
Jennifer Tucker is a historian of technology, law, visual culture and public history. She is the Professor of History and the Founding Director of the Center for the Study of Guns & Society at Wesleyan University, established in 2022 as the country's first academic centre for interdisciplinary humanities research and teaching on the global history and impact of firearms and gun violence. She is the author of several books and articles about photography, evidence, science and visual history including Nature Exposed: Photography as Eyewitness in Victorian Science and, recently, “Lantern Slides” in American Historical Review, (June 2026). She engages nationally and internationally with museum professionals on public history and photography projects and is the producer of two short documentary films, Bill of Rights: Ten Amendments in Eight Motels (2026) and One Morning in Buffalo (2026). She was previously a British Marshall Scholar at the University of Cambridge and a Fulbright Senior Scholar at the University of York, and she is currently a member of the Royal Historical Society's international editorial board.
Event format
13.00: Welcome and talk start
13.40: Talk finishes
13.40-14.00: Q&A
Please note that a light lunch and refreshments are provided at the event.
Accessibility at a Glance at the Paul Mellon Centre
✔ Level access: A portable ramp is available to provide wheelchair access. Please ring the bell on the right-hand railings outside the main entrance at number 16 for assistance. If possible, it’s helpful to let us know in advance if you will need the ramp, so we can have it ready. Please contact us at [email protected]
✔ Accessible for large power wheelchairs
✔ One accessible toilet on the ground floor
✔ Hearing loop available (please contact [email protected])
✖ Livestreamed
✖ Recorded
✖ BSL
✖ Live captioning
PMC Visitor Information - Accessibility Guide & Accessibility Map
If you wish to inform us of any access requirements, please email events@paul-mellon-centre.
Image caption: Mason Bros. & Co. postcard depicting the reading of the Declaration of Independence from the east balcony of the Old State House, Boston, Massachusetts, 18th July, 1776. Digital image courtesy of Jennifer Tucker
Event venue & nearby stays
Paul Mellon Centre, 16 Bedford Square, London, United Kingdom
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