The Civil War Through a Lens From keeping memories to learning about our past, cameras have made a big impact on our society today and before. Many examples have been found on how cameras impacted in the previous centuries, but none have made a bigger impact than in the American Civil War. Adding on, photography and cameras began getting to be really well known around the Civil War and that is the place the initially "embedded" journalists started. Additionally, this is the time when people realized the importance of cameras. Cameras played a vast role not only in the American Civil War in the 19th century, but significantly impacted and opened the Americans' views of the changing world outside of their homes. In the 470 B.C. to 390 B.C., the Chinese philosopher Mo Ti noted that a pinhole can structure an upside down and centered picture, when light passes through the gap and into a dark region. Mo Ti is the initially recorded individual to have misused this wonder to follow the reversed picture to make a picture. ("Camera Obscura: Room with a View," page 1) Although Mo Ti …show more content…
Not only did the families keep photos as a precious keepsake, but the soldiers treasured them just as much. In fact, soldiers were able to take photos themselves. Photos were always kept nearby the soldier, and stored in small pocket-sized albums. Photos that caught the images of men who may never return home turned to be prized family keepings. (Kinsel, Amy J, "Civil War Photography," page 1) As Rosenheim states, "I think that we are, as a nation, only as good as our memory, and the facts of these photographs, their tradition, gives us something that we cannot forget." Evidently, this quote represents that the pictures hold a very strong and unforgettable memory for the families whose loved one has risked their life in the