Natasha Lehner

Iron Sights 

The original Derringer Pocket pistol was a muzzleloading caplock single-shot pistol designed by Henry Deringer in 1825. While it is typically remembered as the gun used in the 1865 assassination of Abraham Lincoln, it is also known as the weapon of choice by many women of the time as its compact design made it easily concealable in a purse or stocking. It became known colloquially as the palm pistol as its ergonomic design placed the gun firmly and comfortably within the hand. Shortly after the Derringer’s initial release, it became an international success. 

In 2022, Walther announced their first pistol engineered for a women's hand, the PDP F - Series. This pistol featured an entirely reengineered grip that claims to fit the exact biomechanics of a woman's hand. Some of the modifications include reduced trigger reach, a 20% reduction in slide rack force and increased grip texture for optimal leverage. 

These inventions made nearly two centuries apart present radically different approaches to female self defense. The Derringer was a tool made to be concealed, hidden in a woman’s most intimate corners and used predominantly to protect the same bodies that were often called into question. By contrast, the Walther was designed to boldly conform to a woman's natural shape. Additionally, Walthers assembled a team of experts spearheading the Ladies Pistol Project 4, an initiative to cater to the rising demand of new female gun owners.

Some years after the introduction of the Derringer, French astronomer Pierre Jules César Janssen invented the Janssen revolver in 1874. The Janssen revolver, alternatively known as the photographic revolver, marked the beginning of chronophotography. Jenssen adapted the revolving cylinders originally designed for a pistol by Samuel Colt to house not bullets but a series of light sensitive plates that would be exposed in rapid succession. The revolver recorded 48 photographs in 72 seconds - a rate of speed and precision that was not matched until the advent of the Lumière brothers cinématographe motion picture system in 1895. 

While the initial application of the photographic revolver was to document the 1874 transit of Venus, it became a key component within the larger trajectory of photography's technical development. The Chronophotographic gun was to follow in 1882 and then, finally, the first handheld camera was introduced by Kodak in 1888. The camera's inventor, George Eastman, used several manufacturing methods that were first pioneered by gun makers, such as engineering for interchangeable parts. But the more striking similarity between revolvers and the earliest handheld camera lies in a partnership between Eastman and William Walker, who together invented the revolutionary Eastman-Walker Roll Holder, a long sheet of gelatinized guncotton that took 100 exposures on a single sheet of emulsion. The writer Paul Landau stated that “breech-loading guns and the Kodak camera not only drew on the same language; they both sealed the same sort of chemicals in their cartridges.” 

As with many inventions of the time, men were the designers but women became the implementers. Shortly after the introduction of Kodak's first camera, women became the company's top sales group. Suddenly, images of and by women became a source of power just as impactful as the Derringer pocket pistol. Susan Sontag in On Photography states that “people are switching from bullets to film. The photographic safari is replacing the gun safari in East Africa. The hunters have Hasselblads instead of Winchesters; instead of looking through a telescopic sight to aim a rifle, they look through a viewfinder to frame a picture”. 

As bullets are replaced by film, women find themselves both behind the viewfinder and the iron sights. From here, they are in a unique position to not only control their image, but protect it as well. Shooters are often told to see beyond their target, to aim small and miss small, to live in a state of heightened awareness and to constantly activate their periphery. Oftentimes, it is what is just out of sight, at the edge of visibility, that becomes either the greatest threat or the most vibrant discovery.