Long before artificial intelligence and advanced digital editing sparked concerns about image manipulation, the United States faced a remarkably similar crisis over doctored photographs. In 1912, mounting outrage over fake images of political figures and fraudulent photography schemes led a U.S. senator to introduce groundbreaking legislation that would have criminalized the creation and distribution of manipulated photos.
The problem of fake photography extends back to the medium's earliest days, when Victorian-era photographers routinely used visual trickery to create headless portraits, spirit photographs through double exposures, and other staged spectacles that both fascinated and deceived viewers. Portrait studios made retouching standard practice, with photographers directly altering negatives and glass plates to reshape faces or soften features to flatter their subjects.
By the late 19th century, public trust in photography was already eroding. The New York Tribune declared in 1897 that the long-held belief that "photographs do not lie" had completely collapsed, warning that skillful negative manipulation meant photography was now "made to suit the fancy of the inordinately vain." The newspaper proclaimed that "the old saying that photographs do not lie must go to join the growing host of exploded notions," noting that photographs "may be and are made to lie with great frequency and facility."
Just like today's AI-generated deepfakes, manipulated photographs were being used for criminal purposes, including blackmail schemes involving fake nude portraits of wealthy women in Chicago in 1891 and indecent trick photographs circulated for extortion in 1905. The sophistication and prevalence of these manipulated images created growing concern about photography's reliability as evidence.
The crisis reached Washington D.C. in 1911, when small shops began selling novelty prints that digitally placed tourists alongside President William Howard Taft. While initially marketed as harmless souvenirs, federal officials quickly took notice and ordered the businesses to cease operations. When the shops requested permission to continue through the White House, they were firmly denied, forcing the novelty photo operations to shut down.
The situation escalated dramatically in 1912 when authorities discovered a doctored Taft portrait in the possession of a man wanted for human trafficking, who had allegedly used the fake presidential photo to gain his victims' trust. This discovery transformed fake photography from a novelty concern into a national security issue, prompting the Justice Department to draft comprehensive legislation.
Senator Henry Cabot Lodge took up the cause after reportedly seeing a doctored photograph of himself with someone he had never met. On July 29, 1912, Lodge introduced a bill that would make it a federal crime to create or distribute "any fraudulent or untrue photograph, or picture purporting to be a photograph" without the depicted person's approval. Violators faced up to six months in jail or fines reaching $1,000 – equivalent to approximately $31,800 in today's currency.
Newspapers across the country weighed in on the controversial proposal. Pennsylvania's Intelligencer Journal strongly supported the measure, condemning what they called the "miserable business of creating fake photographs." The paper praised photography as "a wonderful art" but argued it was "manifestly in need of control against abuse," describing manipulated negatives as "photographic crimes" capable of being "accepted as truth because they looked apparently faithful."
However, the photography industry pushed back against what they viewed as overly broad legislation. American Photography magazine dismissed the proposal as "indefensible," warning that it would leave photographers and publishers "continually liable to blackmailing suits" and expose professionals to endless litigation over routine retouching practices.
The debate intensified just two months before the 1912 presidential election when the New York Tribune published a series of obviously fabricated but humorous images under the headline "The Race For The White House." Created by the photographic firm Underwood and Underwood, the fake photographs showed the three main candidates riding animals associated with their political parties: William Howard Taft on an elephant, Woodrow Wilson on a donkey, and Theodore Roosevelt on a moose. These images demonstrated to the public just how easily and convincingly photographs could be manipulated.
Ultimately, the 1912 bill to ban fake photographs never gained sufficient support and died in Congress without passage. However, the very existence of this legislative attempt reveals that concerns about image manipulation and photographic fraud are far from new. The debates surrounding Senator Lodge's proposal mirror many of today's discussions about deepfakes, AI-generated content, and the challenges of distinguishing authentic images from sophisticated fakes in an era of advancing technology.
