The Digital Past Course Blog

The selection of the still image of the “[Receipt for sale of Jane, age 18, and her son, Henry, age 1 and all future children, December 20, 1849]” was to done to shed light on the cruel and ill- treatment of African Americans during the time of slavery. As much as American history has become an academic curriculum throughout the United States, African American history alike is an important part of American history however, it never seems to get the recognition it deserves.

The image is a photographed copy of the sale of negro slaves that had been handwritten on a document in order to keep record of the transaction. It reveals the lack of technological at the time. If we compare the imaged receipt to the receipts used today, the key difference is the use of technology. Whose responsibility is to properly and efficiently calculate and record our very own transactions.
Regarding this specific time period, historical questions concerning the imaged receipt may include:

If slavery were to still exist today, about how much more would individuals of African descent be worth today?

Being that slavery has long been abolished, what reparations would be appropriate for the unfair treatment of African Americans over the past couple decades?

The methods used such as the Exhibit Image Annotation allowed me to think more critically about my digital image. It enabled me to analyze the image through the Principles of Image Analysis. For example, the “Site of Production” subcategory helped me to identify who the receipt was for, when the transaction for the sale was taken place, for whom the transaction was for, and why. Though, the “Site of Self Image” a more challenging subcategory, made me think extremely hard about the visual meaning of the image. One does not think too deeply about the visual meaning of a written document. When trying to do so, I asked myself how. How would I be able to interpret the visual meaning of the digital image in a way that my audience would understand? ¹

I concluded that the image was a visual representation of history itself, displaying the era in which African American Slaves were mistreated and were held against their will. The receipt was the only form of tangible record for the sale and purchase of slaves amongst both slave and plantation owners.

Through my analysis of the digital image I formulated my historical questions. After years of cruel and unfair treatment of individuals of African descent, it is important that we be given the proper reparations needed to heal from our traumatic past. ²

Compared to the Exhibit Image Annotation, the glitching process, did not help me to think more critically about the digital image. Though engaging, I did not see the significance of such and did not understand how or why it would have enhanced the digital image. I had trouble converting the image from .jpg>.txt to .txt>.jpg. However, I can say that glitching is often not done by mistake. Rather, it is a “digital tactic that produces new iterations of a digital file by introducing or removing strands of code at random or logical “chance operation”.

References:

Kramer, Michael J. “Glitching History: Using Image Deformance to Rethink Agency and Authenticity in the 1960s American Folk Music Revival”. Volume 1 (2018), https://doi.org/10.31835/crdh.2018.08

Teaching Tolerance. “Teaching Hard History: Teaching American History Through Inquiry”. February, 2018. https://www.tolerance.org/sites/default/files/2018-02/TT-Teaching-Hard-History-American-Slavery-through-Inquiry-C3-Report-Feb2018_0.pdf

Omeka Item:

http://jessicadoeshistory.com/cnd/items/show/162

Omeka Exhibit:

http://jessicadoeshistory.com/cnd/exhibits/show/bridget-r–amaniampong/annotated–receipt-of-jane—-

http://jessicadoeshistory.com/cnd/exhibits/show/heather-dietz–answering-the-n/heatherdietzannotation

http://jessicadoeshistory.com/cnd/admin/items/show/182

I chose my image at first by clicking randomly through the pages of the FSA photographs to see which of the many would catch my eye. I came across a page that seemed to be focused on the working class of America in the 1930s and the images caught my attention. My image in particular caught my attention because I felt it represented the working woman very well and it was very empowering to me. I feel it revealed that the documentary evidence was very unfiltered in the 1930s. I feel that it is because they wanted to capture every moment, such as women entering the workplace. The picture depicts a woman, Virginia Davis, working in a factory which surprised me in a sense because I did not think there would be photographs depicting women in the workplace published in 1940. However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized its validity. The background of the image was given. The background stated that Virginia Davis “made arrangement for the care of her two children during the day and joined her husband at work in the Naval Air Base, Corpus Christi, Texas. Both are employed under Civil Service in the Assembly and repair department. Mrs. Davis’ training will enable her to take the place of her husband should he be called by the armed service” (Hollem 1942).

               What made me understand the validity of the picture was the fact that I considered the description of the picture and realized that the photographer, Howard Hollem, was most likely attempting to promote women in the workplace. By promoting them, he was not only empowering these women and showing them they were equally capable of performing a “man’s job”, but he was also doing their families a service as the women would work in place of the men causing no negative affect on the income or well being of the family. I believe the picture has a very strong impact socially. I think it portrays women as strong and in a different light than they have been portrayed in before as housewives.

I picked my image because I thought it would be a little bit challenging since it is just a newspaper stand on the side of the street, and because there isn’t much going on in it at first glance. If you look at the newspapers closely it has many bold headlines about big things that were going on in the 1930’s. For example, one headline says, “Roosevelt Asks Ten Billion; Urges Taxes, Spending be Kept Up”, another one states, “Chamberlains Roosevelt’s Attack on Dictatorships”, then another that stood out the most to me was “Olson Spending Plan Blocked”. All these are on the front of the newspaper in big bold letters for anyone walking by to see. These newspaper headings tell us a lot about the history in the 1930’s because it touches on the many plans that Roosevelt would try to put in the New Deal, or even just the government itself, and that it would be shot down because it would go against what the Democrats wanted. ⁷ The Olson plan was a plan to put government spending down so that the people would be taxed less. One of the many reasons we went into the depression was being taxed so much, although it was not the main cause it played a part in the Depression happening.⁸ For this picture I wanted to know how this photograph was used to document the things going on the 1930’s. Although it seems like just any newspaper stand and there is nothing popping out or happening its just sitting there. However, if you really look and annualize the picture and read the headlines you can see there was a lot of things going on in the 1930’s (manly focusing on 1936 when the newspaper in the picture was published). The method that intrigued me the most was the Site of production of the creator of the pictures point of view. If I was a photographer back then, walking around with my crazy big camera, I wouldn’t stop and think to take a picture of a newspaper stand. I thought it was interesting to see that photo in a collection with other pictures like Roosevelt signing the declaration of war and giving a farmer a grant for him to farm again, etc. I’ve come to the conclusion that even though things to us now might seem minor back in the 1930’s they were a big deal. The newspaper to us is nothing, but to them it was their form of Social Media. With these methods and trying them out on this picture it really showed me that history has a whole new prospective rather than just something that happened in the past. The new prospective of actually experiencing it in the past.     

Below are my two links to the exhibit and the items:

For this project, I selected this image from the Library of Congress in the WPA Posters section. I liked the idea of the posters actually being relevant to the public during its era and that it could make a very interesting glitch. This poster illustrates the desire to get American citizens involved in the war effort which leads to a sense of patriotism. During the time of the poster (the early 1940’s), America was still recovering from the impact of the great depression and were still struggling to overcome the economic and societal turmoil of the Great Depression. The documentary evidence from the 1930’s is demonstrated with the preservation of this poster. Although the poster was created slightly after the ’30s, it remains true that printing items in the ’30s allowed for a wide distribution of art and even propaganda. Since the poster was a print, it was able to be better preserved than if it were a watercolor painting.

The WPA poster makes me wonder if posters like this actually inspired Americans to support the war effort or if it were something that was just casually noticed, but not necessarily taken seriously. Obviously the New Deal is seen in history books to be extremely helpful to bring America out of the Great Depression. However, during the 1930’s, did the citizens actually see the WPA posters or New Deal programs as a way to help the social and economic turmoil?

Whatever the answer may be, the poster still was created to make an impact in the way citizens could help the climate of America, just as every New Deal Program was. A printed poster actually seems revolutionary because printing these posters allowed for a faster and wider distribution of information. The posters are more engaging than the texts because the illustrations capture one’s eye as they’re supposed to for propaganda posters.

These methods of creating mass amounts of posters opposed to hand-drawn images on paper illustrate that the rise of technology and technologic mediums allow for information to be spread at a greater rate than ever before. Due to these advances, citizens could feel more connected with one another and could be more in tune with what’s going on in America.

Works Cited:

“Are You Helping? with Salvage.” HIST 390 The Digital Past: A Cultural New Deal. Omeka, October 9, 2019. http://jessicadoeshistory.com/cnd/items/show/181.

“WPA War Poster, Glitched by Tina David.” HIST 390 The Digital Past: A Cultural New Deal. Omeka, October 9, 2019. http://jessicadoeshistory.com/cnd/exhibits/show/wpawarposter.

Exhibit: http://jessicadoeshistory.com/cnd/exhibits/show/brooke-kostyk–josephine-hill

Item: http://jessicadoeshistory.com/cnd/admin/items/show/176

 Initially to pick a photo for this skill assignment, I chose a random number from one to nineteen to determine what resource to use. After I chose that number, I read about the collection and looked through all the attached media. I specifically chose Josephine Hill because she just looked uninterested. She did not look straight at the camera and her posture seems relaxed and unbothered. The other portraits the men and women are looking straight into the lens and their posture seems to be fixed, like they were staged. Josephine also gives off the impression of hopelessness, which was a general them during the 1930’s. 

Reading about Josephine and the other men and women who were born into slavery has only peaked my interested more. I found myself questioning, How did the Great Depression impact Slavery? How were the slaves treated during this time? The slaves that were lucky to get paid before, did they continued to get paid? 

I found the glitching method more interesting and helped me think more critically about. The actual process of glitching was very fun to try. It was fascinating to see what lies beneath the photo and be able to manipulate it how I wanted. In the article Glitching History, Micheal Kramer stated “Misrepresenting our artifacts allows us to consider the full range of their representations.” This phrase made me think about how five people can be looking at the same photo but each person has different interpretations, questions, ideas, etc. Glitching allows even more questions to arise, and come to conclusions no one would ever thought of looking at the original photograph. Another way glitching is referred to is, “…finding the soul in the machine…” (The Art of Glitching). Glitching the photo of Josephine had me looking at this portrait in new ways. 

My final interpretation of the glitched picture of Josephine is her being slowly blown away, forgotten, turning into just a name on a website.Her story will eventually be forgotten by all, no one will know who she was. Another way I see this photo is her being swallowed up by the darkness, which can me a metaphor for slavery.

Sites:

Kramer, and Michael J. “Glitching History: Using Image Deformance to Rethink Agency and Authenticity in the 1960s American Folk Music Revival.” Current Research in Digital History, 1 Jan. 1970, http://crdh.rrchnm.org/essays/v01-08-glitching-history/.
YouTube, PBS Digital Studios, 9 Aug. 2010, https://youtu.be/gr0yiOyvas4.

Before I dig in to how the glitching process went for me, let me explain my photo choice. I chose this photo because I wanted to find a photo that showed at least one person expressing an emotion. I chose this picture because it doesn’t just show one person, it shows three children each with their own emotion being conveyed. During the 1930s nearly every family (if not all families) were affected by the great depression and this photo depicts the children of a family with clothes that look somewhat old and no shoes. The photo also shows that the family lives on a farm in the middle of the dust bowl so you can see that there’s no crops coming growing thus the family can’t provide for themselves.

            From a historical standpoint, I began to ask how badly did the great depression affect every American family. I ask this because you see photos from that time period and you can see candid photos of families going through rough times and dealing with poverty and on the other hand see families still have smiles and look happy as if nothing has changed for them. Hung and Popp state that to explore our historical question one should “look for interesting correlations between factors” and “constantly ask yourself: Why then? Why there?” ⁸ . These methods allow us to dig deeper into the photos and extract more information than what the photographer intended to share with the world. I personally found the “interesting correlation” method to be more useful for the reason that the “ask yourself” method can get you so far when analyzing a photo.

            This method of finding interesting correlations between what I see and what I read is more useful because it gives more insight into the picture since you can then connect the reading to the photograph in ways you couldn’t do by just simply asking “why then? why there?” I was able to draw that my original analysis is mostly correct as the Farm Security Administration or FSA had published the photo to show what families in rural area were going through.

After being able to analyze the picture can the fun part which was glitching the photo. The idea of taking an image and essentially “glitching” it was a newfound idea to me. It was a fun assignment, but it did come with its difficulties such as trying to do the whole “glitching” process on windows processor. Overcoming that challenge took some time but in the end the original photo and the glitched one are ones to enjoy.  

http://jessicadoeshistory.com/cnd/items/show/172

http://jessicadoeshistory.com/cnd/exhibits/show/zion-rowe–3-children-sitting-

http://jessicadoeshistory.com/cnd/items/show/173

http://jessicadoeshistory.com/cnd/exhibits/show/nathan-brostoff-milk-for-the-n

For my image I selected a poster for a welfare program in New York City that was published some time between 1936 and 1939. I chose this image because it popped out at me when scrolling through photographs from the Federal Art Project as something that could really emphasize the struggles that many Americans were going through during the Great Depression. The dominating milk bottle immediately grabs the viewer’s attention who then reads, “Give to the needy, join the Mayor’s welfare fund!” while at the bottom it advertises a play that will be put on at the Laurel Theater. This suggests that there were people wealthy enough in New York at the time to spend money on leisure activities but they weren’t as willing to donate to those in need. Welfare programs such as this one not only gave aid to the needy but allowed the government to employ artists through the Works Progress Administration, Morris Dickstein writes in his article, Facing the Music, ” The government projects were serious and instructive but also uplifting and, significantly, they provided an economic stimulus in the form of jobs for artists.” ⁹ This poster made me wonder why certain members of society had to be coerced into helping the needy, they were more willing to spend money on a show than going out to buy milk for a starving child. I believe this question is partially answered by Morris Dickstein’s article in the Los Angeles Times How song, dance and movies bailed us out of the Depression ” The most durable cliche about the arts in the 1930s is that despite the surge of social consciousness among writers, photographers and painters (some of it supported by federal dollars), the arts offered Depression audiences little more than fluffy escapism, which was just what they needed.” ¹⁰ But I don’t believe that is the whole story. These methods helped me analyze this poster in pieces, taking each part of the poster to have its own meaning and purpose, contributing to the whole product. When viewed this way I was able to get a deeper understanding for the meaning behind its creation. I was able to delve deeper into my historical thinking and not just see this poster as a way to persuade people with money to help the poor, but as a method for their own healing as well as making sure the arts didn’t die in America.