1870–1890s: Industrialization

1870–1890s was shaped by Industrialization, Social Reform, and Mass Photography, a context in which photographic institutions and expression changed significantly. This era page organizes photographers, movements, and historical background so readers can trace how Documentary, Japanese Photography, and Social Documentary emerged within a wider history of photography. Use it as a chronological entry point from individual photographers to related countries, visual languages, and source-backed historical context.

Basic facts
Era1870–1890s
Photographers9

Context

France lost the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71), and the German Empire was founded. The Paris Commune of 1871 was violently suppressed after seventy-two days, while the Panic of 1873 triggered large labor movements across Europe and the United States.
Maddox’s dry plate transformed photography into a more portable practice because photographers no longer needed to prepare chemicals moments before exposure.

Photographers

🇫🇷FR1813–1879
Charles Marville
Documentary
DocumentaryUrban Documentation

Charles Marville began as an illustrator and engraver before turning to photography.

Read details
🇬🇧GB1829–1887
Thomas Annan
Social Documentary
Social DocumentaryDocumentary

Thomas Annan was commissioned by the Glasgow City Improvement Trust to photograph old closes and streets marked for clearance under nineteenth-century urban reform.

Read details
🇬🇧 🇺🇸GB / US1830–1904
Eadweard Muybridge
Scientific Photography
Scientific PhotographyExperimental Technique

Eadweard Muybridge became famous when Leland Stanford hired him to resolve the question of whether a galloping horse ever lifts all four feet from the ground at once.

Read details
🇫🇷FR1830–1904
Étienne-Jules Marey
Scientific Photography
Scientific PhotographyExperimental Technique

Etienne-Jules Marey approached photography through physiology.

Read details
🇯🇵JP1837–1922
Tomishige Rihei
Japanese Photography
Japanese PhotographyDocumentary+1

Tomishige Rihei (born Shinokura Rihei, 1837–1922) is one of the most significant figures in Kyushu's photographic history.

Read details
🇯🇵JP1838–1884
Yokoyama Matsusaburo
Japanese Photography
Japanese PhotographyPhotolithography+1

Yokoyama Matsusaburo was born in 1838 on Etorofu Island in the Kuril archipelago (present-day Russian territory), into a merchant family.

Read details
🇩🇰 🇺🇸DK / US1849–1914
Jacob Riis
Social Documentary
Social DocumentaryDocumentary

Jacob Riis emigrated from Denmark to the United States in 1870 and knew poverty first-hand before becoming a reporter.

Read details
🇬🇧GB1853–1943
Frederick H. Evans
Straight Photography
Straight PhotographyArchitectural Photography+1

Frederick H. Evans was born in London in 1853.

Read details
🇯🇵JPMeiji period
Tomishige Tokuji
Japanese Photography
Japanese Photography

Tomishige Tokuji is a documented but sparsely recorded figure in the history of Meiji photography.

Read details