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Relics of War The History of a Photograph

How a single haunting image tells a story about violence, mourning, and memoryIn 1865, Clara Barton traveled to Andersonville, Georgia, the site of the notorious Confederate prison camp, where she endeavored to name the missing and the dead. The future founder of the American Red Cross collected their relics and brought them back to her “Missing Soldiers Office” in Washington, DC, presenting them to politicians, journalists, and veterans’ families before having them photographed. Produced by Mathew Brady, the photograph depicts an altar-like arrangement of whittled spoons, woven reed plates, bits of bone, a piece from the prison’s “dead line,” and a tattered Bible. Relics of War reveals how this powerful image opens a window onto the volatile relationship between suffering, martyrdom, and

• KategoriKamera og foto