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This is the first program in the three-part American Photography: A Century of Images documentary that aired on PBS. As this program shows, until the 20th century, photography was limited mostly to professionals. Then the advent of consumer cameras and rotogravure (a process of printing photographs in newspapers) changed everything. The exponential increase in photographs meant that public events and the private lives of families were being documented for posterity to a degree never seen before. Mass media photographs began to influence politics and fashion. Advertisers and propagandists alike learned how to manipulate photographic images to alter reality. Written by Ronald Blumer and narrated by Harris Yulin, major corporate funding of this documentary was provided by Kodak.