Another question: is this an academic dissertation (for a doctorate, i.e., the credential for getting tenure-related employment in your field)? If so, in what field? (I see you've done work in internatonal relations).
A dissertation in a History or PoliSci department (both of which might have internationalrelations faculty, e.g.) might be a 300+pp monograph with extensive bibliography and citations--but the grad student would have to have completed a few years of coursework plus a lot of supervised research (getting to know lots if not ALL the previously published literature on the subject) before getting cleared to write the dissertation.
As far as I know, no US universities offer doctorates in photojournalism per se. Master degrees or Master of Fine Arts degrees, yes. But these don't require completion of dissertations in the sense above. (That's why I'm wondering what you mean by 'dissertation,' and in what field.)
But if I had to point out someone I know who might very well have access to about as much bibliographic info on the history of photojournalism as anyone, it would be Alex Harris at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University:
https://fds.duke.edu/db/aas/MFAEDA/faculty/aharris.
If you try to pick his brain, tell him hello from me. I used his Duke darkroom when I worked (as he did/does) for the Center for Policy Sciences and Public Affairs back in the 1980s.
