Photography and Environmental Activism: Visualising the Struggle Against Industrial Pollution

Abstract

The hydraulic mining pioneered by The North Bloomfield Mining & Gravel Co at Malakoff Diggins, California was environmentally devastating. So much so that in 1878, farmers downstream mobilized. Organized under the The Anti-Debris Association, they sued The North Bloomfield Mining & Gravel Co. for damaging their farms and livelihood. To provide evidence of the debris and flooding, they hired John A. Todd to photograph the environmental impacts of hydraulic blasting. Todd’s photographs were submitted as evidence in the court case. The decision in Edward Woodruff vs. North Bloomfield [1884] determined that the mine should be shut down, resulting in the first environmental legal decision issued in the United States. In Photography and Environmental Activism: Visualising the Struggle Against Industrial Pollution, Conohar Scott argues that the deployment of Todd’s photographs in EdwardWoodruff vs. North Bloomfield reflects the emergence of environmentally activist photography. Scott does not suggest the photographs were pivotal to the decision—they augmented 200 witness testimonials and 200,000 documents. The value of the images as evidence, though, was rooted in the perceived indexical nature of photography. Formally, the images draw on pictorial framing devices, but critically, for Scott, the images were annotated with “ascriptions of blame” (41). Textual descriptions aligned with witness testimony and moved the photographs beyond mere illustration. Scott’s analysis of Todd’s little-known photographs nuances our understanding of photography’s role in the context of mining at Malakoff Diggins. Carleton Watkins documented the mining operation a decade before but rendered mining aesthetic through skillful framing, suitable for pictures commissioned by North Bloomfield to encourage capital investment. Photography thus “cut both ways”; still, Scott argues that Todd’s case study reveals that “an alternate history of the medium exists in