Port du Commerce (Brest)

World War I, sometimes called the first “modern” war, was marked by groundbreaking advances in technology, including photography. Steichen intended to be “a photographic reporter, as Mathew Brady had been in the Civil War,” but he quickly abandoned this romantic notion to help implement one of the newest weapons—aerial photography. Taking images from airplanes made it possible not only to observe a wide swath of the battlefield but also to track daily changes on the front lines.

Steichen was assigned to the newly formed Photographic Section, led by Major James Barnes, and together they oversaw the training and outfitting of aerial-photography and surveillance units that proved their usefulness over the course of the war. Steichen also worked to standardize cameras, materials, and formats across the various national armies in order to simplify cooperation among the Allied forces.

This album was assembled by Steichen in 1919 from prints he kept after his military discharge. Many such pictures entered public and private collections; in some cases, they were assembled into albums that chronicled aerial photography during the war. Steichen’s pride in his work for the AEF is made clear in this unique compilation, which he personally captioned and dedicated to a member of a prominent family of art patrons.

To learn more about this album, visit http://archive.artic.edu/steichen/index.html.