The Sullivan Museum & History Center Presents: A Lecture by Shannon Thomas Perich

Shannon Thomas Perich is the curator in the Photographic History Collection at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, where she has worked for almost three decades. The scope of her work covers daguerreotype to digital, and can be seen in exhibitions, essays, books, blogs, and collaborative conservation projects. Her research interests include the relationship between photography and gun culture, snapshots as data sets, and the circulation of images, with a particular interest in post-WWII magazines and real photo postcards.

She is serving as the conference chair for the 2026 International Nineteenth Century Studies Association (INCSA) Conference (July 21-24). Her most current publication (April 2026) is the chapter, “Illuminating the Kodak Girl: Style and Marketing in the Gilded Age” in US History in 15 Photographs: 1865 to the 21st Century, edited by Rebecca S. Wingo and Lauren Tilton.