Drawing on theoretical insights from science and technology studies, this historical analysis addresses how late 19th century American science journalism helped translate the X-ray, as a new media technology, from the physics laboratory into the public sphere. Described as a form of light, the X-ray was given the moral and physical agency to see into concealed spaces and reveal and cure the ailments within, whether of the body or the body politic. As part of a general epistemological framework distinct from photographic realism, these assumptions about the possibilities of knowing can also be seen across public culture at the turn of the 20th century from politics, to journalism, to philosophy, to popular culture. Ultimately, this study highlights how newspaper coverage helped construct the X-ray as a heterogeneous public object while contributing to a larger set of understandings about what can be known and done in public life.
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