More Finds at the Local Antique Shop - Back to School

It's back to school week for millions of American children. "Back to school" is a right of passage that has been occurring for generations and generations. Here are a couple of images from my collection of antique shop finds that show students.

Do images of children attending class show more than changes in dress? Do they show changes in thinking about schooling? The first photo in this post shows a stern looking teacher. This is not the presence most teachers seek to portray today, but it was the accepted standard in the early twentieth century. [Buns are also out of fashion for most teachers these days, but those of us who do wear them now tend to wear them lower on the back of the head rather than on top like this woman!] I wonder what the children are doing in this photo. Most of the images burned in my brain of early 20th century classrooms include row after row of desks and unhappy children. Is my image here portraying a fun activity? Despite the frowns and blank stares, I like to think that maybe this was an interesting project. Perhaps getting away from one's desk to explore wasn't as unusual as I think it was.

In these images of school, I see our own kids linked to this past. I think that sharing such images with today's students can help them build an appreciation for history -- their own history -- and thus for their historical community. Education grows as we grow. Our ideas about teaching change. Images of education help me recognize something bigger than myself and I believe they can help students see themselves as part of something bigger too. Kids have been going to school and learning a broad range of subjects to help them function in society for hundreds of years. 

The images of school children in our archives should be cherished. To me, they symbolize the hopes and dreams of a young society, aiming to teach its children that knowledge can be a key to a happy, fulfilling life. 

My daughter heads to school this week without a big bow in her hair. I head to school next week. I'll be the new teacher librarian with the wild and wacky curls, perhaps held back neatly in a bun.

Curls on a humid day

Revisiting Our Historical Communities: Melissa the Riveter

 In March, I blogged about creating a context for our personal images . In that post, I included a photo of me doing something a bit unusual for most people and said, "What conclusions might one draw about me based on this image? What do you think I'm doing here and why? Do you think this is an important part of my story or just a simple snapshot? (This is in fact a highly significant moment in my life and an activity that has an ongoing presence in my household almost ten years after this photo was taken." A reader asked me to explain the story behind it. So here it goes....(Sorry to take so long Jacqi)

In this picture with the safety goggles and goofy grin, I was sitting in our former home where my husband had a remarkable basement workshop. In this workshop, my husband began building his airplane. Yes. It is a real airplane - a two seater that he will pilot in the air and not from the ground. When I tell people that he is building and airplane, they usually think I mean the model airplane kind. Nope. It's the real deal.

The plane now sits in parts in our newer home and at the airport. The completed wings are in the hangar at the airport and I requested (insisted?) that the body of the plane remain on his side of the garage so that I can keep my car on "my" side. We were a little disappointed that we didn't manage to obtain a three car garage for our new home so that my car, his truck, AND his plane could sit comfortably under shelter.

So this picture is of me in the great workshop. The kicker is that I was pregnant at the time it was taken. (pun intended.)  I had been helping my husband build his plane, but about half way through my pregnancy nine years ago I stopped. The baby didn't like the sound of riveting. (Go figure!) Zip, Zoop, bam. (That is the sound of riveting and then a baby giving me a good solid kick in the gut.) "Cut it out Mom!"

A few months down the road as I slept off labor. My husband followed the nurse down the hall of the hospital and peeked in the window where they tested babies' hearing. He held his breath. He was sure that we had damaged her with a few "zip, zoops." Baby is actually perfectly fine, but this image remains to remind me of it all.

I chose to re-address this image today because yesterday I had the opportunity to talk again about our historical communities. I've mentioned in this blog in the past how we should all think about those who helped create a path for us to live in contemporary society. Perhaps most especially, thinking about historical communities is a great way to get kids to appreciate history and to understand what archives are. When I talk to kids, I explain about people in the past who did things that people still love today. A little league player can relate to old photos of Babe Ruth. Dancers (like my babe) can related to motion pictures of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. We all can reach back and find historical figures that shed light on our own activities and interests.

I am proud to call Rosie the Riveter part of my historical community - as a woman, an American, and a riveter!

Reminisce

My mother sent me a stack of magazines the other day. A friend of hers in Florida had given them to her to pass on to her archivist daughter. I am thoroughly fascinated and thought some of you might be  as well. The publication is called "Reminisce." Its web site describes it this way:

NOW CELEBRATING 20 YEARS in PUBLICATION!

Reminisce, North America’s top-selling nostalgia magazine, “brings back the good times” of the 1930s, ’40s, ’50s, ‘60s and early ’70s. A variety of true, heart-felt stories are mainly written by the readers, not professional writers, which makes our magazine-and website-unique.

Each issue is packed with fascinating vintage black and white photographs and early color slides. Most photos are sent in by readers who’ve searched through family albums or attics to share the best from their past. Fun-to-read short and feature-length memories bring smiles, laughter and even poignant tears to readers of all ages. Memories span every subject…from the corner store and soda fountain, outhouses and old-time remedies, Model Ts to fifties Fords with fins, early radio and TV, surviving the Depression, World War II, fashion fads and prices from the past. The real thrill of reminiscing comes when someone reads a memory or sees a long-forgotten item and realizes: “Hey! I remember that!
***

My own remiscing...baseball with my Dad in the 1970s.
Great sideburns Dad!

First, I wonder, how many other "nostalgia" magazines are there? The magazine includes photos and stories from readers who want to share their past. I'm going to preface my praise with the caveat that this magazine doesn't seem to portray a well-rounded view of the past. For example, it's tagline reads, "The magazine that Brings Back the Good Times." And an article I read in it about an orphanage stood out as particularly stripped of the "bad." Still, here's why the publication is so fascinating:

• From an archivist's perspective, the publication is making its own "artificial collections" that group and tell stories of American society. Brilliant!
• The magazine is basically crowdsourcing history. What is important to you? What do you want to share? What should we reminisce about? What should we remember?
• The idea behind this magazine is taking a large community (American citizens) and breaking them into smaller communities -- pointing out commonalities among people and giving them back connections that we sometimes see as broken in today's society. Again. Brilliant!

I am rolling this all through my mind and trying to figure out what to take away from it. Can cultural heritage professionals encourage crowdsourcing through publication like this and apply their expertise as curators, archivists, and librarians to help people make sense of their own stories?

Over and over again I hear people who tell me that their kids and grandkids don't appreciate their history. But truly, this magazine shows that there is something for everyone to appreciate and it could serve as a model for us.  When we encourage people to think of themselves as part of history we make ourselves stronger. When we all reminisce or stop for a moment to think about how the events in our lives play a role in society, we are appreciating the work of cultural heritage. 

Reminisce includes such topics as tales of "early aviation." The smile of a female aviator shines from the cover of the April/May 2010 magazine, which caught my pilot husband's eye from the top of the pile on the coffee table. (I'd like to think that it's because of the plane and not the woman.) It also includes pieces such as "Memories of Real Romances" from 2011 that might appeal to a totally different group. "Reminisce" let's us peek at others' histories and neatly connects them to our own. I love it! 

Orphan Photos and the Arts (part 2 - Getting Creative)

 
Last week I discussed the idea of using orphan images to get creative. This post discusses concrete examples of ways to use photos for inspiration, and in art and learning projects. Photos can come from your own family collections. You can also find interesting orphan photos at antique shops and garage sales.

Beware of Preservation and Retaining Provenance 

Before you begin, consider making copies of any orphan photos that you collect. Use the copies in your projects rather than originals. I used regular photocopies in the projects I show here, but you can also have prints made to achieve a different look. Keep originals using safe archives methods. Record everything you know about the photo, including who gave it to you and where you bought it. Even record if you don't know who the people depicted are. (Don't leave others guessing and thinking that you might know them.) You may want to try to learn more about the people depicted or even reunite images with appropriate families if they are not your own.

Looking for Images for your Project

You can certainly use you own identified family images in your art. Your own images make everything seem more personal. Using images of people who you suspect are members of your own family can add some extra sentiment to an art project. However, images of strangers can also give a nice feeling to your work. There is something to be said for regarding strangers as part of your own history; they are part of a long web of humanity that eventually made its way to you. The pictures you choose in your work can be there for beauty, a sense of a general history, or a more intimate family feel.

Some General Thoughts about Photos

You may choose images for projects that grab you because of a family connection, a friendly face, a sense of history / nostalgia. Alternately, you may seek images with commonalities that may even help tell a story. Perhaps there is something happening in your life that you want to highlight or contemplate further. Seek images that relate to your hobbies, interests and life events. For example, as part of "The Life in Context Project," my project partner Sue and I are focusing on food memories. To highlight our talks and workbook, I began digging for orphan images related to meals. This lead Sue and me to digging through our own photos to find us eating at our own family tables. I feel as if I have a new understanding of how food threads through our lives and also a fabulously illustrated book on the topic. The images would also be great for decorating my kitchen with large posters, imprinted on small tiles for an unusual backsplash, or in a homemade family recipe book. (Remember to include caption that indicates a photo is an "orphan" if it is one, especially in a family cookbook!)

Find a Muse

The confidence this unidentified woman exhibits in this photo inspires me and I keep her in my mind's eye

This is probably outside traditional archivist thinking...but the artist in me finds muses among my work. I once wrote about how I often grow fond of the people represented by some of the collections on which I work. I have been inspired by the lives of many New Englanders whose papers I have been lucky enough to process. Photographs can give me a quicker way to get to know someone. I do not necessarily need to read a diary or letters to feel as if I know a personality well enough for it to inspire me. One image can have a similar effect. Think like an artist. Find someone among your photos who inspires you and channel that feeling into your work.

I am also inspired by this unidentified, apparently loving, mother (or teacher). Her muse came in handy for this project.

I don't know who they are, but these images are implanted in my brain. I return to them often and use them in a lot of my work, so I can think about how they influence me.

Getting Jiggy with It

Photos can be laquered to tiles and used to decorate.
I often use tiles about doorways to add a little pizzazz
and with this project I've added a touch of history.

Okay, okay...I may be showing my age with that headline, but really, now the fun and fancy free part comes in. I asked my husband to purchase some tiles when he ran out to Home Depot the other day. Can't you just picture a whole bathroom tiled with these "heirloom image" tiles on the left? The history geek in me says that would be very, very cool. If anyone reading this grows inspired to do that and follows through, please send me pictures! I recently redid my bathroom, so that won't be happening around here.

I also had a leftover wood picture frame that I covered with decoupaged images. I left the images to dry on the table. My daughter bounced in from school and got very excited. This blog post took on a whole new meaning with her help. Kid project time! Old images are a great way to engage children and get them excited about history.

A little glue and creativity can go a long way. I'm envisioning future Christmas ornaments and valentines that my daughter can work on too.

So channel your inner muse, find a topic or an item that inspires you and get to work. If you do feel the creative muse, share her (or him) with us and share your photo art projects too.

More Finds at the Local Antique Shop - Food Memories

There is always a story behind what we eat (and what we don't eat). 

In December, my daughter and I were admiring the gingerbread houses at a local pastry shop. The shop is down the street from her dance class and I bring her in once in awhile so she can get a treat. The gingerbread houses were part of a contest. My daughter and I voted for our favorites and this entered us into a contest to win a free tray of pastries. Above is the winning tray - a plate of pastries that I won for my friends. (Thanks Frederick's Bakery!)  BUT, I have Celiac disease and can't touch the stuff. I think the last time I won a raffle was for Yankee tickets when I was in high school. My Dad  gave them away because we couldn't travel into the city to use them. The treats do look delicious and I'm awaiting my friends' visit right now for some tea and company, AND so I can give away my treats like a pair of Yankee tickets... but I digress...

Bring up any particular food and I think I'd have a story about it that represents my life at that particular moment: From the Three Musketeers bar that I ate on the way home to placate my sweet tooth while the Frederick's tray sat beside me; (Yes, the candy is gluten free.) To the salami sandwich I had for lunch yesterday, which my husband proudly invented for me when I was ill last year... there are stories for almost everything I eat - when I first discovered the food; what I like about it and why.

On my drive home from the bakery I began thinking about all of the snapshots of food that I have in my photo albums. I have one of me laughing as a teen with my mouth closed tight full of cake. It's one of my favorites because my hair looked good that day. I have another one of me holding up a birthday cake that I shared with my aunt because her birthday is around the same time as mine. I have one of me cutting cake with my husband at our wedding... In fact, I realize now that I think about it that most of the food images I can remember involve birthday cake or sweets. I guess that most people must document birthdays and cake events better than any other event in their lives.

The black and white images in this post are orphan photos that I found in antique shops to illustrate my "Life in Context" project with professional organizer Sue West. Part one of the project focuses on food. All of the images involve meals at the table, foods half way to the eater's mouth or piled on plates. They are very informal images, capturing a moment in time and illustrating a shared human experience. [hmmm...There is no cake.]

It wasn't too hard to seek out images of food for illustration. The images are plentiful, yet we give them little thought. I'm going to try to go dig mine up today and see if they tell some sort of story about my life - a tale of who I am through what I eat.

How are you documenting your food memories? Do any of these images kick off memories for you about food? What role does food play in your life? How do the choices you make reflect your communities and people in your life? Have you won any food contests lately?

(This one is my favorite!)

Share your food memories at https://www.facebook.com/groups/lifeincontext/ and look for these images in the upcoming Life in Context Food Memories Workbook!

Organizing family photos - getting over the hump

Family photos can be organized in
albums or boxes. Your perfect method
may differ from someone else's perfect
method

The subject of caring for personal photos has come up numerous times in the past couple of weeks, so I find myself posting about it once again. I spent part of this morning working with a client on a personal photo organization project. Sometimes the hardest part a consultant plays in such a project is convincing a person that the "collection" is not unmanageable. Most people store items in bureaus and shoe boxes. Many people spread them all over their homes. Most people feel overwhelmed. Remember that the organization of your personal papers and photos can be taken in steps and everything can be organized. You are not hopeless or helpless. Realize that a little help can go a long way.

It is hard when a family member is more inclined to be organized than another. It is not helpful when others remark about one's disorganization. Words of criticism tend to increase one's feeling of being overwhelmed. I walk into many homes where the person who has hired me feels that the personal papers they are about to show me are the worst mess that I have ever seen. They are embarrassed because they feel the material has gotten out of control or someone else has told them that it is out of control.

An example of a "mess" that I have found

I can unequivocally say that I have never seen a home collection in worse disarray than some of the town collections I have seen. The common home is smaller and the average person collects less paperwork, etc. than the average town. Archivists deal with "mess" everyday. There is little you can show us in the way of personal papers that will throw us out of step. I actually enjoy tackling piles. It is part of the reason I got into this line of work.

Do not be afraid to begin because of overwhelming feelings. Many people do not take on projects or stop projects because those "this is too much" feelings grow. Work out what needs to be done. Write a plan by yourself, or with a little help from a professional. Take your organization step by step. Start from where you are and dive in. Do not just hope to be more organized. Create a guide that plays to your personal lifestyle. Create a reasonable plan that outlines what you want to do and write out the steps. Think about your end goal. Do you want to display your favorite images? Do you want to create albums? Do you want to organize digital files? Be specific about what you really want.

My client this morning told me that one of her top priorities is to create a photo album celebrating the first year of her daughter's life. Her daughter is now 6. She has such an album for her nine-year old son. I think that there are some guilty feelings attached with not having such an album for her daughter. So, step 1. will be to begin sorting images using guidelines I will provide for her. Step 2. is to create that album for her daughter. Once she gets that done, she should have a huge feeling of accomplishment that will help propel her through the rest of the steps we've decided together.

Begin somewhere. Make a dent. Set a specific goal for yourself that will feel like a milestone when you hit it to get over the hump. Focus on moving ahead and don't look back.

Response to Culling Photographs

A photo I return to again and again...
my grandmother with an unidentified little girl.

I found an interesting conversation generated over at The Turning of Generations blog in response to my Culling Photographs post about a week ago. Blog author Michelle Goodrum provides thoughtful guidelines for working out how to decide if you should toss out an old photo. The comments related to her post were also wonderful and raise many concerns one might have with appraising images and discarding.

This topic actually gets very personal for me. My mother has a shoebox of nameless people from the early-twentieth century. These are presumably relatives who were scattered around the world or killed during the Holocaust. This makes the shoebox worth keeping...for now. We have a general idea about the subjects of the image. We know they were passed to my mother from her parents. We have a small bit of context, which is sometimes not the case with a shoebox of orphan photos.

There is talk in my family of using face recognition software to try to identify the people in the images. It would be exciting to find some answers. If we can't, perhaps a repository related to Poland or to the Holocaust would be interested in these images. Usually, realistically, Archives do not want orphan images. The millions and millions they can collect are virtually useless without information. Perhaps because I have some context, someone will want these images...but I am not sure if all of these photos are of people lost in the War. I'm not sure if they are relatives or acquaintances. How much information do these unlabeled images really give and how much context do they really hold?

Right now I have no information, but I have hope. Our family will keep this shoebox until we've exhausted the possibilities for identification. By the end of my lifetime, if we have not found family connections or the technology to help us identify people, surely I have given the search enough time. The next generation does not need a shoebox full of permanently lost information. The important thing is for me to label the images we know and to convey to my daughter what happened to her ancestors and why. I want to tell her the stories of her great grandparents who escaped from terror and spend my time recording the memories we have of them rather than holding out false hope that what cannot be found will turn up someday.

One thing struck me when reading comments from genealogists about keeping family photos. It often comes up as I move between the worlds of individuals with personal papers and families with personal papers. The professional archives can more easily turn away papers and orphan photos than families interested in history can release them. The repositories do not have a sentimental attachment. That distinction may seem obvious, but as a consultant, I must keep in mind that it makes it harder for clients to overcome hesitancies about getting rid of anything. In fact, genealogists are so well-versed with the search for information and the finding of unexpected threads that I can sincerely understand negative responses to the idea of "culling." However, there are images that one just will never be able to identify no matter how long one searches.

I want to tell you that there does come a time when you should let go. Eyes staring back at us from a printed sheet pull us in. Photographs have a unique ability to let us feel the humanity of their subject. It can be hard to break the attachment we feel with our heart. Let yourself accept that moment of letting go when it comes. Not everything can or should be saved. Do not let what is important get lost among the clutter.

The Lost Stories - Guest Post by Linda Norris

When Melissa asked me to write a guest post about the Pickle Project,  I pondered what to write about—recipes?  Oral histories?  Working in another culture?  So many paths to consider.   But historic photographs always intrigue me and they were no exception in Ukraine.

A bit of background:  in 2009 and 2010 I spent four months each living and working in Ukraine as a Fulbright Scholar, teaching museum studies and collaborating on workshops around Ukraine, a country I knew little about before I decided to go.   The Pickle Project is a collaboration with another Fulbrighter, Sarah Crow,  to document Ukrainian foodways, with their emphasis on sustainability and seasonality and to share, through exhibits and our blog,  that knowledge with audiences here in North America.   We’d both long had an interest in foodways, and we each found so much intriguing about food in Ukraine—pickles, but also home-made vodka, pampushki (donuts) and of course, borscht.

So I began to look for historic photographs about food.   About once a month, while living in Kyiv,  I would get up early on a Saturday, sometimes with friends, sometimes by myself and take the metro over to the Left Bank on the far side of the Dnieper River.  There, in a big convention hall, often housing other events at the same time (dog show, bridal show, garden show) was a weekly antiques and flea market—in many ways, much like any you might go to here.  There’s always something both compelling and depressing about flea markets for people who care about objects with their stories intact. There’s the feeling of a huge room of objects untethered from their owners.  The market always had all kinds of things:  beautiful Ukrainian textiles,  weapons,  Soviet realist paintings and murals stripped from public buildings,  and religious icons, along with small ceramic statues,  costume jewelry and the like.

 

But I began to seek out historic photographs of farming, eating, gardening and the like.  And I found some surprises—that seemed not so surprising once I thought a bit more about it.  I saw piles and piles of military photographs—not surprising when Ukraine has been fought over and over during the 20^th century.   I found far fewer mid- and late- 20^th century photographs than you would in the United States.   Not surprising when, under Soviet rule, so much was controlled and one goal was never to stand out.   And I found so many stiffly posed group photos:  again, not a surprise when Soviet life was entirely collective.   And sadly, I also found photographs with accession numbers that had clearly come out of museum collections.

 

But, I kept looking and found some wonderful images that conveyed both how much has changed in Ukraine (Kyiv is a modern city) and how much, in the villages, life continues at a pace of an earlier time (except of course, for the ubiquitous cell phones!)

The antique market always brought a sense of loss to me—but it was counterbalanced by one of my favorite museums in Kyiv—the Ivan Honchar Museum.   This museum aims  “to help revive national culture, promote ethnic consciousness, and preserve and develop the best traditions of Ukrainian folk art.” And according to the museum, “ In the 1960s his collection served as an alternative to the then official ideology and helped spark a renewed interest in national culture.”

Ivan Honchar went from village to village, collecting materials including photographs and carefully placing them in albums, along with his watercolor sketches of material culture.  Those albums, which the museum is in the process of reproducing, represent a traditional culture that, despite the best efforts of the Soviets, refused to die.   Ivan Honchar choose not to represent an official state culture, but rather the culture of villages and the museum that bears his name continues to develop lively programs on folk culture (become a fan of the Ivan Honchar on Facebook and check out their great photos!)

Across Ukraine’s diverse landscape, wars have been fought, genocide has been committed, and untold many stories have been lost.  When I pick up a photograph at the flea market, I hold just one of those forgotten stories in my hand and wonder.

And in the Pickle Project, we hope to capture those individual stories, photographs, and of course recipes.   To learn more about the Pickle Project, please check out our blog and become a backer on Kickstarter by February 1!

****

Hi everyone. This is Melissa here. I started following Linda on Twitter, learned about her fascinating Pickle Project and made a pledge to help her capture the vital Ukraine stories she describes above. Linda's project with Sarah Crow is a fabulous example of how people can help save culture. Linda's work gathering photographs, stories, and foodways is capturing unique traditions and heritage that can be shared around the world, blending the preservation of tangible and intangible heritage. Every day, we lose artifacts and knowledge that are among the best human beings have to offer. Our stories, recipes, languages, songs and dances can only be remembered when people make an effort to pass them on. Please join me in making a pledge to help the Pickle Project reach its goal so they may document and share the rich traditions and foods of the Ukraine. Every little bit counts.

Read Linda Norris' blog The Uncataloged Museum

For more on "Intangible Heritage" see http://archivesinfo.blogspot.com/2010/11/intangible-heritage.html and 

http://archivesinfo.blogspot.com/2010/08/intangible-memories-preserved.html

More Finds at the Local Antique Shop - Olde Time Vacation Photos

A fun subject for taking a breather from my business planning today...

I always wanted to go to one of those shops, often found on the boardwalk, where one can dress in old clothes and have one's sepia-toned photo taken.  Maybe that's something to strive for in 2011? That should be an easily attained New Year's resolution...not an appropriate goal for my business plan, but you can see that my head is still swimming in the planning clouds...

Stamped "H. Rothman, Surf Ave & Balmers Walk, Coney Island" this image caught my eye in a lovely little online Etsy shop. Here is the kind of picture perfect memory I want to obtain in a cliche setup  - a corny, touristy image of Americana.

A quick Internet search shows that prop car images on the boardwalk were plentiful. I found images of Coney Island prop cars as far back as 1912 and as late as the 1950s. (Again, if you are a regular reader of this column, you know that I always dip my toe into research and know that I can and perhaps one day will take my inquisitiveness a bit farther. Perhaps these cars are still around today or have been brought back as Coney Island is trying to rejuvenate its boardwalk? Does anyone know anything moreabout these props?) Imagine how many thousands of people posed this way in this one car and perhaps posed in multiple Coney Island studios with similar cars. One picture I discovered of note included a group of boys from the 50s, trying to look "cool," pretending to drink alcohol (or maybe they were really drinking) in the car.

There is something about taking part in an activity that so many other people do. When you go on vacation, you want to get your picture taken in front of Niagara Falls, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the Eiffel Tower. You want to prove that you were there, but you also want to share the experience. Posing in a prop car links you to a fellowship of humans looking for relaxation and fun. You are part of a community when you take in the touristy attractions as millions have done before you. Perhaps, like the teenagers from Coney Island in the 50s, you want to put your own stamp on the scene. Through staged photos you can express who you are and define your niche in the world, while still telling the viewer that you too experienced this unique sense of place.

And perhaps my desire to dress myself up in old-fashioned garb is my own wish to tie myself to the memories of time and to connect my present to an idealized view of the past... or maybe I just want to be a little corny.


***
In my research, I came across this web site that makes use of modern technology to collaboratively preserve a community's memories in a fabulous way. I hope that you enjoy "My Coney Island Memories" as much as I did. http://www.myconeyislandmemories.com/ Be sure to check out the visitor's comments page link at the bottom to get the full sense of the success of this project.
http://www.myconeyislandmemories.com/sinrodvisitors.html

More Finds at the Local Antique Shop - Albums

A complete album is a rare find in the antique shops I frequent. If an album is offered for sale, it has usually been emptied of its contents, images separated to sell individually so that the seller can make a larger profit. (If you are a regular reader of this column, you already know that I object to this treatment. Collections contain more informational value when they stay together. Furthermore, many albums, atlases, illuminated manuscripts and other artifacts that we can appreciate artistically are often destroyed for profit, greatly depleting their artistry. ) Albums stripped of their images in antique shops are usually beautiful, with fine leather or fabric covers that enclose hard pages of windows for mounted photos. However, a couple of weeks ago, I came across a set of albums offered intact. Their soft leather covers wrapped around slowly deteriorating soft black pages and their photo corners precariously cradling black and white images of unidentified faces.

With some difficulty, I chose to purchase only one of the three albums. I did this in deference to my finances and storage space. I was hesitant to split the collection, but there is nothing in any of the albums to identify from where they came and to whom they belonged. Each album was a mirror of the other with more unlabeled characters. I told myself that I was not taking away any historical information. It was already lost. Few repositories would want any more albums of nameless faces. (I say this without getting into a theoretical discussion about when a repository might actually want such an item because there are times when an unidentified album can still be an archival treasure.) Additionally, in my judgment, these albums do not have any intrinsic value as a set. Each individual album is a treasure as a window into a particular time and lifestyle, but since the family was unidentified the wholeness of the set was less relevant.

The album reveals a large Catholic family in the mid-twentieth century. Individuals, small groups and large groups pose for the camera, to be remembered for posterity. There are images of babies, couples, teens, adults, clergy, and even pets. Images are taken in apartments, on the street, in front of churches. Page one shows the image of a pretty young girl. I would like to assume that this is her album. We are given glimpses of major life events - weddings, confirmations, and the like. I think that I will spend hours poring over this puzzle, trying to piece together a story by identifying faces that appear over and over.

When I brought my object for purchase to the register, I asked the sales clerk if she knew from where the albums came. As she flipped the pages with interest she told me that the individual dealers in the shop generally get items at estate sales. I told her, "It's a shame that no one can identify these people and that the history of this item is lost." She responded, "Oh well. That's what the family decided." I wondered aloud if the family realized that their community beyond their relatives may have had an interest in these albums. She looked up from the album as I explained that I am an archivist and I know many places that would love materials such as this for their collections if people could provide information about the people and places pictured. "Really? I didn't know that. These are really interesting," she said as she looked back down and began flipping through. She was losing herself in thought and told me, "You know, I wanted to be a nun like the ones pictured here."

Albums give us a lot to think about. They provide a look at the lifestyle of an individual family and offer little slices of how that family networked with the outside world. One may even find herself comparing her own family story to that of another when confronted with a stranger's album, reliving our own dreams and experiences as translated from a camera lens. As with any book, the story it tells is one in which we can dig in with our imagination.

(Blogger is not letting me post more than one image today. If you would like to see more images from the album, please visit my Facebook. page http://www.facebook.com/pages/ArchivesInfo/156934267979?v=photos&ref=ts)

Shared Cultural Heritage: My Unlabeled History

Yesterday, a commenter on my blog generated a conversation about when to keep unlabeled photos. (Thanks Anna!) I wanted to share a story about my most important unlabeled photo. It is an image that I've placed on my business card to make a point about family heritage and to drive home an equally important point about labeling your images.

I sometimes write about my family background and it is something that I regularly talk about in presentations. I am the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors. My grandparents escaped from Poland before the Nazis rounded up other family members to march to concentration camps. It is the most poignant piece of my family history and is something that helped shape who I am and what I believe, and it strongly influenced the occupation that I chose.

The image to the left shows my grandmother. I was named after her. I never met her because she passed away when my mother was a teen. Based on her age and dress in this image, we believe that it was taken in the 1930s. We do not know for certain who the little girl in the image is, but we have an educated guess. My grandparents had a child during the War. They lived in Russia at the time because of their displacement. They had difficulty feeding the girl. I will not go into all the details. I do not know them for certain anyway. I do know that the girl who was my aunt did not survive to meet her siblings who were born after the troubles, in a new homeland across the Atlantic. The girl in this photo is the appropriate age at the time this was taken to have been my mother's older sister. The way that my grandmother holds and looks at her is the way a mother looks at her beloved child. This image is unlabeled and there is no one we know left to verify our conclusions about the girl's identity.

I share my most personal stories because I know that they may help someone else who has a similar story or some other traumatic event in their family's past with which they have to come to terms. I also share my stories because it is valuable for all of us to cherish our personal histories, share our pasts, and recognize that all of our tales are interconnected. As an archivist, it is my job to promote the value of understanding history through our documents. Such understanding allows us to improve ourselves, work to improve the world around us, and forge ahead into a more promising future that builds positively upon our collective experiences.

The items you possess that reveal your family story are important beyond your immediate relations. Care for your cultural heritage and recognize your role in preserving community knowledge. Label your photos so that history can be remembered and past down to those who can learn from it.

More Finds at the Local Antique Shop - Photographing Our Communities

I've had communities on my mind lately as I've been preparing for my "A Life in Context: Telling Your Story" workshop. So, it was delightful for me to walk into 101A Antique and Collectible Center yesterday to find a plethora of group photos.

My first photo today is a group of young women sitting on a lawn in similar attire. They likely are classmates. The element of this photo that made it so appealing to me is the affection shown by the girl in the

upper right. The two wanted to show their friendship for the world as they look directly at the camera for their frozen moment in time. Friends. Classmates. Young women. Are they part of a sorority of some sort? I wonder about the other communities these girls form. When they leave this scene, they return to families, groups with diverse interests, various clubs and other groups of friends. Each one has a separate story to tell, but together in this image they demonstrate their mutual connection.

The second image shows two women in a yard with youngsters. I thought it was a little unusual for women to pose for a picture dressed in their work clothes. I imagine that perhaps they were hanging clothes, or picking herbs, or performing some other outdoor chore while the children ran around the yard. I wonder who took this image. Was it a husband who came home to find a happy family or another woman in the neighborhood? This peek into family and neighborhood life is charming and we are lucky enough to have the names of individuals recorded. "Mother and Betty Firber, Edith, Dorothy Fiske, me, Mary (?)" The young "me" obviously labeled the photo at a later date so she could remember this community and its members.

The last image is my favorite. I think that is because it reminds me of stories my father used to tell about his childhood filled with stickball on the streets of New York. This image is likely from at least two generations earlier than my Dad's. The boy in the front center wears a baseball glove while the one beside him is wearing a tie. Was this taken on a weekend and one boy changed faster after church than the other? Or, was this taken after school? Are the kids getting ready to play or were they in the middle of playing? What did the photographers see in this community group that made him decide to stop and record them? Were the kids close friends who were always together or were they neighbors which just made them convenient playmates?

Images of my own document similar communities in my life. Our human connections form our sense of self, while helping us better understand and relate our individual history through a developed vision of our surroundings. When you bring together the tales of individuals and their communities, you have a larger community history and eventually a regional, national and global tale of humanity. Individual and community stories matter. Photographs are a great way to check in on them.

More Finds at the Local Antique Shop - The Appeal of Photographs

Last week I set out to browse the shops on Route 4 in New Hampshire, known in these parts as "antique alley." Despite currently being enrolled in an antiques class that has me examining artifacts such as pottery and toys, I found myself once again fully engrossed with my beloved archives and ephemera. These items that I can pick up for two or three dollars on a good day reach out to me to tell me the stories of ordinary people in a way few other items can. Images that hold value to me are those that show something removed from my way of life.

On my Facebook page, a remark a number of months ago has had me thinking about what makes photographs so appealing to people. I replied to the comment, "I think photos make history come alive in a way that other types of archives (except moving images) cannot. We can better understand the past ...dress and environment. We can also directly look into someone's eyes and try to feel what they were feeling. Whereas with old documents we may have the thoughts of a person in writing, in a photo we can project our own thoughts and picture ourselves in a different time and place in their costume. The past is brought more to life in an image perhaps. We don't have to create the scene in our head. It is right before us." The images I draw from today have piqued my historical interest and imagination. Something otherwise plain and ordinary seems far removed from what I know, so I romanticize it or turn it into something of value. The value to me is twisted based on my lifetime experiences and professional knowledge, but also based on my own heritage in comparison.

I recently read an article written be an English woman interning at the Smithsonian. She described her love for American history being due to the foreignness of it, romanticizing the United States' short history and the unique pride we have in it. She compares the traditions and attitudes in this country against those with which she grew up. Our "otherness" has in her mind intensified the value of the history she studies and the work experience she is having.

This idea also brings me back to a conversation with a colleague last week. She is from this area of New England and I am originally from New York. She was raised in an old New England family with a Protestant background and I am from a Jewish immigrant family. We have been working on a program about telling life stories, so have come to learn a lot about one another's heritage. She basically told me that her family history is boring unlike mine, which involves my family escaping from the Holocaust during WWII. I told her that I find her history exciting and that is why I moved to New England. My history has a moment of adventure (for lack of a better word), but the true story of my ancestors is rooted in orthodoxy and a religious life that was practiced for generations without any other blips. The foreignness attracts me to New England (despite living here for 23 years now) and attracts my colleague to New York.

The images I found at the antique shop last week are of ordinary people. I think it is safe to say that I would not want to really live in the shoes of any of these people. I don't want to wear their uncomfortable clothes. I have never wanted a big family. I don't want to run around in overalls with dirty feet. I like the amenities of 21st century America. However, each of these images is appealing, showing a romanticized version of time and place -- romanticized in part by the photographers of the images, but also by me and my own biases.

In the first image, the man of the household sits higher and central to his large family. His wife is by his side with a book open on her lap. I imagine that it is a bible. The children are well dressed and neat, sitting on the stoop of the family home. They cannot smile. Presumably if they do try smile, they will not be able to hold the pose long enough for the camera to capture the scene without a blur. If I look closely, they are quite stiff, in suits and corsets of the time. They are also stiff in pose, facing away from each other each lost in their own thoughts. It seems a strange way for a photographer to pose them to me. At first glance I saw the great American family. With a second glance I feel an underlying current of uneasiness. Is this a romantic scene of happiness, pride and comfort? Only the little girl looks directly at us. Even the father who faces us seems to be looking over my shoulder and the mother doesn't look directly at us, sitting with her arms folded across her belly as if she has a stomachache. This is certainly not the life I know, but I'm also not sure what these people are really feeling. I am projecting my own thoughts on this confusing scene.

The second picture reminds me of a Mark Twain tale. Boys just like Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer stand side by side with dirty feet and mussed overalls. This is the way Americans romanticize times past with a "boys will be boys" sensibility of children playing in mud puddles and catching frogs. We are lucky enough for the image to be labeled on the back. "Clyde was about 8 years old. Was taken on his grandma Hunters home at Mil Lion. The little boy with Clyde is Brownie Kelly." The boys even have great American names! But is this an image of a beautific childhood or of a hard farm life?

The third picture I found of Americans is of a presumably well to do couple. The photographer shoots up at them, emphasizing their fine dress and perhaps even their high station in life. They are the picture perfect people from the gentleman's top hat to his hand in his pocket to the woman's fine gloves and coif. Perhaps this couple is attending a wedding. If I were living during this time, I probably would want to be them. I envision nineteenth century yuppies with few responsibilities they can't handle. I don't think I want to see their correspondence, diaries, or financial papers that may ruin my ruminations about their lovely existence.

A photograph's appeal is in its capture of fleeting time. A moment is locked for eternity and an ethereal being lost to the pages of that time can be a tangible image on paper and in our mind's eye. Photographs alter our perception of reality, reminding us that our experiences are not the center of the universe and showing us that diversity can be mysterious, confusing and wonderful. I wonder how people will view my boring 1970s polaroids if they are ever separated from my family. Will my little boring suburban Long Island life be exciting to someone? What will they read into my skinny body and perpetually perturbed pre-teen stare?

More Finds at the Local Antique Shop - Provenance

This curious image caught my eye at the local antique shop. Do you spot something odd about it?
Why is the girl in the front row holding a "No Hunting" sign?

Otherwise, this class (supposedly graduated from a New Hampshire school) strikes me as rather ordinary. Typical hair, dress, and dark lipstick of the period in a rather ordinary New England room, with steamers that provide a clue about a celebration of some sort. The image is interesting from a provenance perspective. In fact, all images that end up at the antique shop interest me in this way. How do people's private images wind up here? Would they miss them? Would they be upset to know that I am evaluating them?

In the archives field, "provenance" is important for determining the authenticity of materials and for understanding the contextual value of items. If I were to do more research on this image, I would start with the information given to me by the antique dealer. The dealer's label reads "circa 1940s Lakemont Academy photos." As an archivist, I would not presume that this is factual from someone else's identification. If I cared to take the time for my personal collection (or were managing a collection in which this photo would serve as documentation of a community), I would try to confirm what the dealer has told me. To do this, I would need to find other similar collections. by contacting the dealer to ask from where he got this material. Then, I would contact the family, collection, etc. from where he said it originated. Or, I would contact the Lakemont Historical Society or another repository in the area and seek similar collections to compare the faces in the photo and find out more information about the Lakemont classes from the 1940s.

The first image was accompanied by a second one and the two were sold together for ten dollars. (Overpriced, I think, but I was really curious about that "no hunting sign.") The second image is of the school's basketball team. Some of the boys appear in both photos, and the basketball shirts do say "Lakemont," making me more confident about their origin. But the more information I could gather about the items the better and I would work to unravel the puzzle until I was confident about the items' origin - putting the images into context, learning more about this class, and perhaps learning how the antique dealer came by these images.

Confirming provenance gives users of archival material a context. Random photos found in an antique shop may not be interesting until we can relate them to ourselves, our community, or a personal interest. A fellow Lakemont grad or basketball team member may have found this fascinating despite their initial ordinary appearance.

Or, than again, that "no hunting" sign may have been enough to pique someone else's curiosity...

How to Organize Your Photos

new article in Bedford Bulletin, April 3, 2010 - How to Organize Your Photos http://www.archivesinfo.com/images/bedfordbulletin4.jpg

More antique shop finds - Pondering Portrait photos

Excuse the crooked posted images. I don't have my photo editing program up and running on my new computer yet...

I found these two lovely young ladies on last week's antique shopping sojourn. Professional portraits are an art form unto themselves. The lovely outfits, careful poses, and chosen props are much as one would find in a painted portrait.

I was especially intrigued by the girl on the right in her big hat that frames her into the scene from the top, while the grate and platform upon which she stands frame her from the right and the bottom. Her straight arm braces the scene on the remaining side, forming a perfect circular movement around which my eye is retained in the photo for a clever composition.

The photo on the right is of a girl who looks very much like my daughter and first attracted me for that reason. Her curly hair decorated with flowers gives her an angel like appearance. I wonder the occasion for such fancy dress.

Photos such as these mark memorable events or milestones in one's life. the expense of professional portraiture (then and now -- and I'm not talking the portraits you have done at Sears) are usually reserved for moments that you wish to capture forever. While the art historian in me evaluates composition and context, the archivist in me digs a little deeper to wonder even more about the lives of these individuals. Not only do I wonder the reason why these images were made, I wonder how they got separated from their families. Where did these people live? Were the images once part of an album? How would the families feel if they knew I found these in a little shop outside of Concord? It is remarkable to consider how the papers and tokens of our lives outlive us and make others ponder.

Antiquing from an Archivist's Point of View

The antique dealer said to me, "So you must be from Dover," as I fingered the dull medal and tried to decide if it would suit my purpose.

"Um, no I'm not," I replied.

He stood beside me waiting for me to tell him why I was interested in the little New Hampshire Old Home Day souvenir, his curiosity now piqued, I guess. I considered whether I wanted to explain it all again, as I had done so many times before to so many different types of people.

"I'm an historian," I said, "I'm interested in things." Did I really want to teach what an archivist is when I was supposed to be enjoying a morning away from the office?

The dealer was satisfied and just told me to let him know if I needed his help. I wandered the aisles of the little antique shop on Route 4 in New Hampshire, known in this state as "Antique Alley." I peered in little glass display windows seeking mementos that would help illustrate my book about documenting communities and items that could possibly used in my classes to teach students about the importance of archives and preserving personal papers.

My closest friend was accompanying me on this trip. She has no background in what I do, but is trying to understand. "How about this cute postcard for the book?" She asked. I looked over her shoulder to see the Norman Rockwell Christmas card she held.

"I can't use it because of copyright issues," I said.

"Oh." We wandered some more. "Ooh! Here are the letters you need!" She exclaimed. I had told her that old handwritten letters would be perfect. So I again sidled up to her and this time saw the old town records she was examining. I hope that I stifled my sigh.

"These shouldn't even be here, although you'll find municipal records in shops like this all over the place and on E-bay." I explained, "These are the legal property of the town that created them and should be returned." I also explained this to the proprietor to whom I then had to explain what I really do.

"I'm an archivist and we manage records such as these. They really should be returned to the town. They are an important piece of documentary heritage." The shop owner thanked me kindly and said he'd notify the seller. He was nice about it at least...didn't harumph at me or anything.

I left the shop with my Dover medal, two lovely black and white images, and a small tin type. I always wanted a tin type. This one does not have its full case, but the frame and the little woman staring back at me are beautiful. It's always nice to have my own special bit of history to share. As an archives consultant, I don't always have archives and manuscripts at my disposal to use as samples for explaining. So I build my own "collection" and try to find items that are meaningful to me in some way and it makes the process of "collecting" more worthwhile - fun, memorable and educational.

My day on Route 4 was great. We found another little shop with more town public records and this time my friend jumped all over it. "Look! You had better tell them about these too." We then left for a great lunch in Concord at Siam Orchid Thai on Main Street. ( I highly recommend this restaurant by the way - super yummy.)

This morning I scanned my treasures to share some with you. And now I have also done my personal "educational" part. I love New Hampshire Old Home Days. I grew up in New York and there we had fireman parades and fairs where our town's heroes could show off their equipment. I suppose the point was to encourage us to keep supporting their purchases. They then held a big carnival to entertain the local kids. Old Home Days in New Hampshire has a similar atmosphere. According to a little research, (very little research to be exact - not up to my usual, but I'll save that for another day should my interest in this topic grow further) Old Home Days were started at the turn of the century, supposedly to encourage children who were leaving home in increasing numbers to come back to visit their families. Towns all over New Hampshire began having big celebrations to show off their towns and welcome back children for reunion (sort of like school homecomings, I guess.) Old home days can stimulate the economy, raise local awareness by encouraging groups within a locale to participate, and raise civic pride. Old Home Days can be a central part of a movement to stimulate cultural awareness and thus my little Dover medal has special meaning for me, someone who works primarily to promote cultural heritage. My antiquing is never straightforward.

See the ArchivesInfo Facebook web page for a new post on finds at the local antique shop. See some of my recent finds that give rise to a sentimental feeling, pique an interest, or awaken an intellectual curiosity about history.

Remember to label your photos or your family members could wind up in my collection of curiosities just like these photos did!