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“Images to Sell Kodak”: Nancy Ford Cones: Photographs for the George Eastman Kodak, Company 1902-1917

Shives, Jenny C.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin990801973

Abstract Details

2001, MA, University of Cincinnati, Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning : Art History.
Nancy Ford Cones (1869-1962) was a Pictorial photographer from Loveland, Ohio who, for fifteen years, created images for the Kodak Company that were used in advertisements in national publications. Cones was one of a small number of women who received an income from her photographic work. This thesis is a preliminary study, limited to Cones' business relationship with the Eastman Kodak Company from 1902 to 1917. Her commercial images appealed to Kodak's marketing strategy because they combined photographic artistry with a practical use of the camera. In the introduction I discuss the position that Cones occupies in photographic history, compare her rural and domestic genre images with that of other female Pictorialists, and suggest professional influences of other noted photographers. There is little scholarship regarding Cones' work, hence, relies upon primary sources from the Cones archives at the Greater Loveland Historical Society Museum. This material consists of transcripts of interviews of Cones and of her daughter, Margaret, contracts and personal documentation describing business associations with Kodak, Bausch and Lomb, and Ansco corporations, plate glass negatives of Cones' advertising photographs, Cones' collection of photographic journals and publications, and over two hundred original prints. I also present primary documentation from Cones' personal scrapbook belonging to Cones' great grandniece, Mrs. Darlie Sloan, of Nevada. In chapter one I provide a brief biographical history of Cones and discuss possible motivations for her interest in photography. I describe some of Cones Pictorial work and various print development techniques she used in collaboration with her husband James, such as bromide and gum-bichromate processes. In chapter two I examine Cones initial relationship with Kodak, which progressed from Annual Kodak Advertising Competitions entries to routine purchase contracts. This section includes background and requirements for the Kodak competitions along with company expectations regarding award-winning photographs. In chapter three I describe Cones' advertising images, present formal analysises of three Kodak advertisements that used Cones' photographs, and Kodak's advertising history. My conclusion, supported by fifty-six advertising images discussed throughout the thesis, stresses Cones ability to adapt her style to accommodate commercial marketing while still retaining a romantic pictorial style in her photographs.
Theresa Leininger-Miller (Advisor)
1 p.
Art History
Nancy Ford Cones Kodak Photographs

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Citations

  • Shives, J. C. (2001). “Images to Sell Kodak”: Nancy Ford Cones: Photographs for the George Eastman Kodak, Company 1902-1917 [Master's thesis, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin990801973

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Shives, Jenny. “Images to Sell Kodak”: Nancy Ford Cones: Photographs for the George Eastman Kodak, Company 1902-1917. 2001. University of Cincinnati, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin990801973.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Shives, Jenny. "“Images to Sell Kodak”: Nancy Ford Cones: Photographs for the George Eastman Kodak, Company 1902-1917." Master's thesis, University of Cincinnati, 2001. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin990801973

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ucin990801973
© 2001, all rights reserved.
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