The Graphic Sphere: Images and Civic Conscience in the Progressive Era.

[from the Author's introduction: ]
The aim of this short essay is not to discuss Habermas’s theory in great detail, but rather to use the notion of the public sphere as a starting point, based on Habermas’s most basic definition, i.e., the “domain of our social life in which such a thing as public opinion can be formed.”
This paper is an attempt to describe the emergence of a “Progressive” public sphere in the United States in the first decades of the 20 th century, through the examples of numerous “civic exhibits” which took place in the 1900’s and in the early 1910’s.
Magazine accounts of these expositions suggest a number of contradictions and paradoxes which seem in many ways typical of Progressivism and its complex understanding of publicity and public opinion. Claiming to mirror the concerns and deliberations of the public, these civic shows, as they were described in the illustrated magazines of the time, appealed to both reason and emotion, combined science and drama, praised technical expertise together with consensus democracy. They were virtually accessible to all citizens, they were supposedly free from coercion, and apparently they provided the means to publicize opinions and criticism about the practice of local government: in these respects, these exhibits resembled “spatialized” forms of Habermas’s sphere, and were conceived and advertised by their promoters as mediating instances between state and society. They were places were citizens could join in the rational discussion of the concerns of civil society, based on various types of documents (images, figures, written texts, but also—more problematically—“representative” human beings).
The following comments are based on several articles taken from publications that belonged to the mainstream of Progressivism. Such a survey can only go so far, as it relies on the reformers’ own account of their actions and beliefs. As a consequence, it must be understood merely as a preliminary exploration of the nature and role of civic exhibits in the Progressive version of the public sphere. A cursory reminder of Habermas’s original version of the decline of the public sphere, which may seem to run counter to any serious consideration of such a civic forum in the Progressive era, will introduce a presentation of the reformers’ notion of “publicity” at the turn of the 20 th
century. To many reformers at the time, the key word was “graphic,” a term which seemed to solve all problems relating to the exposition and explanation of social issues. Public awareness and discussion was to be initiated and structured through an array of “graphic” illustrations and displays published in the press and shown in civic exhibits that were organized in many cities at the beginning of the 20 th century. If there was such a thing as a Progressive public sphere, it may have been conceived as visual as much as rational.