A democracy of the image: photographic portraiture and commodity production -- Evidence, truth and order: photographic records and the growth of the state -- A means of surveillance: the photograph as evidence of law -- A legal reality: the photograph as property in law -- God's sanitary law: slum clearance and photography in late nineteenth-century Leeds -- The currency of the photograph: New Deal reformism and documentary rhetoric -- Contacts/worksheets: notes on photography, history and representation.