In late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century China, a sociopolitical and a visual revolution unfolded simultaneously, each shaping the other. This book argues that early Chinese revolutionaries from the late Qing period through the May Fourth Movement used photojournalism as a temporal intervention to shatter the visual stagnation of nineteenth-century studio photography, pulling China out of an ossified past and demanding recognition as a modern nation on the global stage. Capturing and fueling protest against both the ruling Qing dynasty and foreign imperial powers, the illustrated press eschewed long-form texts and instead condensed complex ideological narratives into legible images, which worked as emotive political catalysts.