For this assignment my historical question was what did Oklahoma look like during the Dust Bowl and how did it affect the people living there? I specifically wanted to focus on Oklahoma because of how much it had been brought up in the readings and in class. I found this picture in the Library of Congress database and knew I had to use it. This image really shows how important documentary evidence is when teaching history and reveals so much about the 1930s. My great grandfather always told stories about the Dustbowl, but I never felt like I could see it in my head just right. By seeing photos from the time period, it makes it feel more real and I feel like I got a better sense of what was happening.
This photograph makes you realize that in the 1930s’ people had to abandon the lives they made due to something they couldn’t control. It not only showed what the Oklahoma land looked like in the Dust Bowl, but it also captured the despair people were feeling at the time. I used two methods that I used to realize that: image annotation and glitching. Both are very useful tools when it comes to analyzing historical images, though I did prefer image annotation to glitching.
Annotating the image was extremely helpful for me personally. I felt like it made me think more about what the photo was about and what Dorothea Lange was trying to say with it. I also felt that it’s much easier than glitching an image. Although glitching seemed fairly easy after I had read Trevor Owens’ article, I found it very difficult to understand the code and not render the image completely unrecognizable.
Once I figured out how to properly glitch the image, I learned how useful glitching could be. It can be used to make a statement using a historical photograph. For example in an article written by Michael J. Kramer called “Glitching History”, he shows a picture of an important folk artist named John Hurt during the 1960s folk music festival. Using the glitching method Kramer shifted Hurt to the center of the photograph. He did this to make a statement about how influential Hurt was in the folk music revival.
Glitching also taught me how simple it is to change a historical image; it really makes you wonder how many people have digitally edited a historical image in order to make it look like something it wasn’t. This thought makes you think more about where a photo on the internet is really coming from and what changes have been made to it.
Link to image analysis exhibit: http://jessicadoeshistory.com/cnd/exhibits/show/image-analysis–farrey
Link to Omeka item for orginal photo:http://jessicadoeshistory.com/cnd/items/show/472
Link to Omeka item for glitched photo: http://jessicadoeshistory.com/cnd/items/show/473
Citations:
Dana Cochran et al., “The Great Depression,” Matthew Downs, ed., in The American Yawp, eds. Joseph Locke and Ben Wright (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2018).
Kramer, Michael J. “Glitching History: Using Image Deformance to Rethink Agency and Authenticity in the 1960s American Folk Music Revival.” Current Research in Digital History, January 1, 1970. https://crdh.rrchnm.org/essays/v01-08-glitching-history/.
Lange, Dorothea. Worn-out Land and Abandoned Cabins near Newport, Oklahoma. Photograph. Library of Congress . Library of Congress. Accessed January 21, 2020. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2017770101/.
Owens, Trevor. “Glitching Files for Understanding: Avoiding Screen Essentialism in Three Easy Steps.” Glitching Files for Understanding: Avoiding Screen Essentialism in Three Easy Steps | The Signal, November 5, 2012. https://blogs.loc.gov/thesignal/2012/11/glitching-files-for-understanding-avoiding-screen-essentialism-in-three-easy-steps/.
