Historical Photographs Research Articles

Uncertain Blackness: The Mysterious Case of Joseph Stadler

Abstract Historians have identified George Coleman Poage as the first African American Olympian. Poage won two bronze medals in the hurdles at the 1904 St. Louis Olympics. In that same year, the name of another potential Black Olympian, Joseph Stadler, appeared briefly in a few newspaper stories previewing the games. Stadler clearly competed in St. Louis, winning a silver medal and bronze medal in the now-archaic forms of standing jumps. Whether he should join Poage on the roster of pioneering African American Olympians, however, remains a mystery among Olympic researchers—as does his racial identity. Analyzing the historical record regarding these claims and employing new information from census data and other public records reveals that Stadler was most likely white. His “misidentification,” however, reveals more than just a trivial episode about an inaccurate reading of racial identity from limited sources. The long history of narratives about Joseph Stadler's identity reveals important patterns about the social construction of race, illuminates the complexities of more than a century of seeking to depict the Olympics as a fulcrum of racial progress in American culture, and showcases the dangers of attempting to read “race” from historic photographs.

Random access memories or clichéd representations? Exploring historical photographs of the troubles on Instagram

ABSTRACT Social media provide unprecedented opportunities for the distribution of photographs capturing experiences of conflict. Instagram in particular renders conflict photography searchable, whilst also aggregating the memories of traumatised communities. This paper adds to the nascent literature in this area by exploring how the photosharing app is used to share photographs of the Northern Irish ‘Troubles’, a low-intensity conflict that resulted in 3,600 fatalities and left many more bereaved, injured and traumatised. Two decades on from the Belfast Agreement, Northern Ireland remains a deeply divided society in which competing narratives over the conflict remain deeply entrenched. This study explored photographic representation of the Troubles, with a specific focus on who was represented in these images and whether they were evoke personal memories of the conflict. A content and narrative analysis of 100 historical images tagged #thetroubles was conducted in order to explore these issues. Results indicate that images showing the ‘peculiarity’ of everyday life during the conflict, such as armed British soldiers standing in close quarters to children playing in the street, were the most prominent visual representations under this hashtag. The memories evoked by such historical photographs reinforce zero-sum narratives on conflict, rather than promote new interpretations that build support for peace in ‘post-conflict’ societies.

Crossing the Caucasus hunting for plants: the collection itinerary of the botanists Stéphen Sommier and Émile Levier in the summer of 1890

ABSTRACT Stéphen Sommier and Émile Levier were eminent botanists and plant collectors (but also ethno-anthropologists, geographers and photographers), best known for their scientific travels in Italy and abroad. This study accurately reconstructs the travel and collection itineraries of a trip through the Caucasus in 1890. The botanical importance of this journey is significant, with over 10,000 specimens collected, more than 1600 taxa identified, and over 250 newly described taxa based on the collected samples. The locations visited are placed in a time sequence on up-to-date georeferenced topographic maps. Furthermore, using dedicated heatmaps, we show the sites where the two explorers collected specimens that were later identified as taxa new to science. These maps will also be useful to botanists, historians, scholars and curators of natural history museums, who work with Caucasian flora and vegetation, ethno-anthropology, history of photography, and landscape.

Imported Table Wares in the Palestinian Countryside in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries and Their Integration into (and Influence on?) Local Dining Habits

Archaeological fieldwork in Israel has testified to the presence of a variety of imported glazed table wares of the 19th and first half of the 20th century—notably from the northeast Mediterranean, Europe and the Far East—in numerous locations, including in rural sites of various ranks. The influx of import of these ceramics to the southern Levant and their widespread use reflect the intensifying commercial activity in the eastern Mediterranean and the gradual processes of globalization and quasi-Westernization or modernization among certain local populations. This article examines the extent of use of imported table wares among 19th to early 20th-century Palestinian Arab rural societies, the modes of use of these vessels in food consumption contexts, and consequently the power of foreign (culinary) objects to modify local (dining) traditions. These aspects are investigated by using archaeological materials, historical photographs and some written testimonies. This review shows, on the one hand, that imported table wares were integrated into local kitchens and functioned alongside locally-produced vessels. On the other hand, although many of these imports—specifically the European ones—were originally designated for individual eating, it is shown here that their influence on local, well-rooted traditions of communal dining was minor, especially among the great majority of the countryside population.

Barokne skulpture iz kapele sv. Jakoba (Blažene Djevice Marije) na Očuri

Gothic chapel of St Jacob (originally dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary) in Očura (Gorjani Sutinski near Radoboj in Hrvatsko Zagorje) underwent Baroque modifications in the mid-18th century (1752). Its degradation, initiated with damage during World War II, primarily impacted the wooden inventory, including altar sculptures that adorned its interior. Among the surviving remnants of the once luxurious Baroque furnishing, a group of seven statues with uniform design features, evidently associated with the extensive furnishing campaign shortly after the building’s renovation, deserves special attention. Only two years later (1754), an Apostolic visitator described the appearance of the remodelled and newly furnished chapel, crediting the local (Mihovljan) parish priest Ivan Kukuljević, later appointed a Zagreb canon (1755), for the entire project. In the last year of his ministry, the symbolic completion of Kukuljević’s efforts to adorn the Očura chapel was marked by the establishment of a branch of the prominent Confraternity of the Holy Rosary, as indicated by a report from the canonical visitation conducted three years later (1758). Unfortunately, records from the aforementioned canonical visitation (as well as later ones) do not provide a detailed description of the newly erected altars or the iconographic programme of their statues. These are known only from a series of historical photographs from the first half of the 20th century, related to the chapel’s devastation. Given the fragmentary preservation of the sculptural ensemble in Očura and its generally poor condition, previous publications could offer only brief stylistic and formal analyses. Nevertheless, the harmonized design of the sculptures’ bases, the roughly hewn and hollowed-out backgrounds, their proportions, and their basic typology suggest that they are part of the same programme. Additionally, the morphological features of the drapery, physiognomy, and anatomy lead to the assumption that they were all produced by the same sculpting workshop. Based on the described affinities with works from the oeuvre attributed to Joseph Straub, it seems possible to connect the Očura statues with his circle, which – in addition to the master’s assistant and successor Joseph Holzinger – included other, anonymous sculptors active in the area of Lower Styria and north-western Croatia.

Interpreters of the Real: Poems about Photographs in the Periodical Press, 1840–1860

Abstract Short, anonymous poems were a common feature in the popular magazines and literary journals of photography’s first two decades, the 1840s and 1850s. Yet despite its wide readership, periodical poetry has been largely neglected in histories of photography. Through close readings of periodical poems, this essay addresses this gap and adds a fresh perspective to the complex history of photography’s reception. It argues that whereas Victorian journalism often concentrated on photographic realism and focal clarity, periodical poets were more interested in photography’s ability (or inability) to convey the emotional and psychological qualities of visual experience. By drawing on the technical process and language of photography but concentrating instead on affective qualities, the poems discussed here repositioned familiar debates about photography’s status and made their own claims for the values of both arts as interpreters of the real.

Post-WWII Ruins on Photography: An Introduction to the Reconstruction of the City of Poznań. Case Study Old Town

The aftermath of World War II (WWII) left numerous European cities devastated, necessitating extensive reconstruction efforts to restore their urban fabric. The city of Poznań, located in western Poland, was no exception, as it bore witness to widespread destruction during the war. In this abstract, we delve into the role of photography in documenting the ruins of Poznań after WWII and how these visual records have contributed to the city's subsequent reconstruction. This research explores the visual representations of post-war ruins in Poznań through the lens of documentary photography. By examining archival photographs, contemporary accounts, and historical narratives, we aim to analyse the significance of these images in understanding the extent of the destruction and the subsequent efforts to rebuild the city. The abstract highlights the inherent power of photography to capture the raw reality of urban devastation, conveying the magnitude of the challenges faced by the city's inhabitants in the aftermath of war. Furthermore, it sheds light on the ways in which photographic documentation played a crucial role in informing reconstruction initiatives, acting as a visual guide for architects, urban planners and policymakers. Drawing from the rich visual archive of post-war Poznań, this study showcases how photographs served as a valuable resource for documenting architectural losses, mapping destroyed areas and preserving cultural heritage. By juxtaposing historical photographs with contemporary images, we examine how the city's landscape has evolved over time, tracing the progression from ruins to reconstruction.

TREVOR PAGLEN’S BORDER ABSTRACTIONS IN THE AGE OF MACHINE VISION

Over the past two decades, machine vision and artificial intelligence (AI) have become integrated into many aspects of daily life, and with machines generating images for other machines, humans are no longer at the centre of the image world. To explore the implications of the age of machine vision, this article focuses on a selection of work by American artist Trevor Paglen made between 2008 and 2018. It examines the significance of the US-Mexico border region as a site of his investigations and the role of abstraction in repositioning machine vision within the human-centred visual language of art. The article shows how Paglen’s body of work turns toward the nonhuman to consider what it means to make images when representation is no longer primarily a site for the construction of meaning by humans but is also a field of data for analysis by machines. It explores how Paglen conveys the interplay between different models of vision with an aesthetic sensibility that develops from the history of photography but signals the breakdown of representational photography. His work highlights the contested space of the US-Mexico border region as a key site in a surveillance infrastructure that depends on a new regime of vision and offers a space to reflect on what it means to live in a world where most images are now made by and for machines.

Virtual Reconstruction of the Deconstructed Heritage: The Former Building of the Belo Horizonte School of Medicine

Built between 1911 and 1914 by architect Francisco Izidoro Monteiro, the former neoclassical building of the Belo Horizonte School of Medicine (BHSM) was located in a central area of the city. Its design, inspired by the European precepts at the time, was embedded in the same architectural language that characterized the cityscape of the capital of Minas Gerais, Brazil. The original building was gradually dismantled and completely demolished in 1960 to make way for the present headquarters. Few records of its existence remain. In order to contribute to the construction of the digital heritage of the old BHSM building, this article presents its virtual reconstruction, and demonstrates and analyzes the application of Heritage Building Information Modeling (HBIM) for this purpose. Based on data collection and the organization of numerous references (historical photographs, former students’ recollections, magazine articles, books, minutes, and photogrammetry of the remains), a hypothetical model of the building was developed to represent its condition as built and prior to demolition. Despite the difficulties in modeling, it was possible to perform a virtual historical reconstruction of the building, providing a better understanding of the building that does not currently exist. The preservation of the digital heritage of the demolished building aims to raise public awareness of its memory, which is consistent with the collection of the Memory Center of the UFMG School of Medicine (CEMEMOR).

On Photographic Monumentalism: Nineteenth-century Representations of Architectural and Historical Sites

Abstract This article addresses the intertwined history of photography and architectural historiography in the nineteenth century. Focusing on European photography of Egyptian antiquity and Palestine’s biblical sites, it elaborates how a commemorative form of historiography deploys photographic images of what came to be known as the “historic monument” to construct notions of patrimony, historical heritage, national identity, and imperial mission. The second part of the essay discusses photographic monumentalism in Qajar, Iran, and Ottoman Turkey as different responses to Orientalist representations of Middle Eastern architecture by Europeans.

Goiter in the Qing Dynasty.

Empress Dowager Cixi, the supreme ruler of China's Qing Dynasty, along with Imperial Concubine Jin, mayhave suffered from goiter. Our suspicions were aroused by two interesting historical photographs. Herein, weprovide a medical interpretation of these historical images in an attempt to present the cases of these twohistorical figures.

Historical specimens and photographs reveal long‐term changes in Smalltooth Sawfish (Pristis pectinata) age class distribution and average size during U.S. population decline

Abstract Population‐level, historical studies can provide insights on the distribution, abundance and demographic characteristics of imperiled species prior to human exploitation, habitat modification or climate change. These studies provide a baseline for contemporary data, which often shape successful management and recovery. The smalltooth sawfish (Pristis pectinata) occupies ~20% of its historical range due to declines driven primarily by mortalities in fisheries and coastal habitat loss over the last century. As a result, they are listed as Critically Endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species and as Endangered federally in the United States (U.S.). Because P. pectinata grow to a large size and have a toothed rostrum, many historical photographs and specimens are archived in natural history collections. Metadata and morphometric data were collected and analysed from P. pectinata photographs (n = 84) and specimens (n = 429) to evaluate temporal changes in average size and historical distribution of five age classes in U.S. waters. Historically, smaller age classes were well‐distributed throughout the northern Gulf of Mexico, while only larger age classes were recorded on the U.S. east coast, north of Florida. All age classes were found in both Florida and Texas historically, but records from Texas decline after the 1980s and remain persistent in Florida, indicative of a strong‐hold for the U.S. population. Regardless of origin, individuals in three of the five age classes were larger on average historically than those observed today. Understanding which age classes used previously occupied areas will help direct habitat restoration efforts and support recovery, especially in the face of climate change. Non‐traditional data sources, such as those used here, may often be the only means of providing historical context to modern research on imperiled species, ultimately guiding restoration and conservation efforts.

Using photography in history of science and technology:

Photography has been used to record different features of human societies since its invention in the first half of the nineteenth century. After years of being used as an illustrative tool in history, photography conquered its place as a primary source since the mid-1980s. In this article I add to this debate with a methodological approach to use photography in history of science and technology (including medicine and engineering). I argue that photography offers an exclusive view to understanding how science and technology were implemented, used, represented, and presented to the public. I offer both practical guidelines and a theoretical framework, based on Barthesian semiotics, which can be used by younger as well as by more experienced academics. I claim that this proposal has the potential to be used as a common denominator between assorted photographic collections and therefore to allow broader comparisons across different historical and geographic contexts. Moreover, it promotes the critical view of photography that should not be taken by its face value, but it should be understood within its sociotechnical and technoscientific context. This reflection certainly has its flaws and shortcomings, and it is naturally open to improvements, through its practical application to photographic collections.

Image searching in an open photograph archive: search tactics and faced barriers in historical research

AbstractDuring the last decades, cultural heritage collections have been digitized, for example, for the use of academic scholars. However, earlier studies have mainly focused on the use of textual materials. Thus, little is known about how digitized photographs are used and searched in digital humanities. The aim of this paper is to investigate the applied search tactics and perceived barriers when looking for historical photographs from a digital image archive for research and writing tasks. The case archive of this study contains approximately 160,000 historical wartime photographs that are openly available. The study is based on a qualitative interview and demonstration data of 15 expert users of the image collection searching photographs for research and writing tasks. Critical incident questions yielded a total of 37 detailed real-life search examples and 158 expressed barriers to searching. Results show that expert users apply and combine different tactics (keywords, filtering and browsing) for image searching, and rarely using one tactic only is enough. During searching users face various barriers, most of them focusing on keyword searching due to the shortcomings of image metadata. Barriers were mostly in the context of the collection and tools. Although scholars have benefited from the efforts put into digitizing cultural heritage collections, providing digitized content openly online is not enough if there are no sufficient means for accessing the content. Automatic annotation methods are one option for creating metadata to improve the findability of the images. However, a better understanding of human information interaction with image data is needed to better support digitalization in the humanities in this respect.

Hand and Eye: Study on the Relationship between Painting and Photography from Benjamin's Perspective

The birth of printing brought great changes to literature, and the continuous fragmentation of printmaking media allowed pictorial art products to flow into the market. However, no one could have imagined that just a few decades later, the birth of photography would remove the human hand from the main artistic task of image reproduction, which would henceforth be reserved for the eyes staring at the lens. Walter Benjamin, as an early scholar among Western intellectuals in the 20th century, paid attention to the study of the relationship between photography and painting. The Small History of Photography and Works of Art in the Era of Mechanical Reproduction written by him can be regarded as classic works of photographic theory, modern cultural theory and modern art theory. His focus is on the juxtaposition study of photography and painting, two art categories that are both visual image presentation, which is pioneering, original and foundational. Although the paper is not long, the game between symbol and image, politics and economy, and subjective and objective is particularly wonderful. Therefore, it is particularly necessary to dig deeper into Benjamin's theoretical connotation and fully reveal his value in all aspects. The combination of the relationship between painting and photography has also injected impetus into the construction of contemporary visual culture.

Introduction: Moments of science. Photography and the understanding of nature

The search for certainty in a world that is often so binary – where choosing between two options seems to be the better (and simpler) alternative – gives meaning to the expression «a picture is worth a thousand words». But if we are running away from simplicity, why choose between the two?
 Since the advent of photography, the scientific community has had a tool with which to provide objective knowledge that had previously been recorded and shared through words (both oral and written) and illustrations. It thus became a key tool for constantly pushing back the frontiers of our understanding of nature. Despite its success and potential, photography continues to be overlooked by some in the scientific community.
 This monograph navigates through the history of photography and science. It shows how great historical figures such as Charles Darwin saw photography as a powerful ally. It also highlights some of the ways in which photography is used in contemporary scientific activity. It is quite striking to consider how transversal and necessary the contribution of photography has been – and will continue to be – to the advancement of science.

Analysis and interpretation of an historical photograph among future teachers of social science subjects: Research using the eye-tracking method

This article presents the findings of mixed-design research carried out in 2021 on a sample of students who were training to become teachers of social sciences subjects. The aim of the research was to determine the extent to which a carefully considered, didactically structured analysis of an iconographic historical source (an historical photograph depicting the occupation of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact troops on 21 August 1968) influences the quality of the source’s perception, analysis and interpretation. A computer test with a set of questions for the respondents (test subjects) was created as a research tool. The study used three methods of data collection and processing: audio recording analysis using open axial coding and categorization; eye-tracking to investigate the perception strategies of the test subjects; and structured interviews carried out with the test subjects following the test, in order to gain information about the course of the test and to indicate potential options for modifying the research tool. The results of the study showed that a didactically structured analysis of the iconographic source had a substantial positive effect on the students’ perception strategies and the quality of their interpretation. If the test subjects are not guided towards a thorough observation of the image, identifying its individual elements and determining their meanings, they mostly overlook these important elements entirely, and their interpretation as a whole is very superficial. Another aspect of the source that is usually overlooked is the level of empathy, i.e. understanding of the individual experiences of the depicted people, bringing multiperspectivity in the perception of the depicted situation. These research findings should be taken into consideration during pre-graduate training for future teachers of social sciences subjects; graduates of teacher training degrees should possess these specific competencies and be able to implement didactically structured analyses and interpretations of historical sources in their teaching at primary and secondary schools.

Investigating adolescents’ historical reasoning skills when analyzing and interpreting an image

This study investigated adolescents’ (secondary school students, N = 145, M age 13.9 years) historical reasoning skills when analyzing and interpreting an image. Presumably, historical reasoning can be fostered when engaging in inquiry-based writing. However, in past research using inquiry-based writing tasks, textual sources rather than images prevailed. The present research investigated students’ writing skills when interpreting a historical image. Participants were presented with a historical photograph and were asked to write a structured text about their analysis and interpretation of this image. A scoring rubric was developed to assess the quality of students’ historical reasoning skills, specifically: (1) asking and answering historical questions, (2) reasoning about images, and (3) reasoning with images. Findings show that the factor structure of the scoring rubric largely overlaps with theoretically distinguished components of historical reasoning. Students were able to ask historical questions and write a well-structured text. However, most students did not describe and analyze the source of the image and did not refer to the main message of the image. Further, many students could not identify the image’s relevance for the present. Importantly, the findings imply that students’ methodological competencies to critically analyze and interpret the used image were not elaborated. Possibly, they do not receive sufficient training addressing these skills. This seems problematic, not only in history education but also when deriving meaning from images in everyday life.

Restaging Afghanistan: Trapped in the Cycle of Conflict Photographies

Western, especially British interventions in Afghanistan, parallel the long history of photography. This article examines the resulting archive and considers its ongoing influence on the traditions of conflict photography through the concept of the ‘Feedback Loop’ coined by photographer Tim Hetherington. Hetherington’s work is used as a departure point for an examination of the archival legacy of the male-gendered western gaze in ongoing western incursions. It focusses on Hetherington and contemporary practitioners to position and understand a repetitive cycle of photographic witnessing informed by the archive. Its perspective is on western traditions in the context of picturing Afghanistan and explores what underpins such traditions and how contemporary practitioners are rethinking, rememorizing and now restaging Afghanistan as a site of post-imperial ‘conflict’. It argues that what Hetherington identified as a ‘feedback loop’ is part of a much older tradition of picturing conflict and the combatants at its heart.

The Perpetual Unfolding of Photographic History: A Previously Unknown Panorama of Salvador, Bahia, by Rodolpho Lindemann

This article examines a panoramic photograph of the Brazilian city of Salvador, in the state of Bahia, taken around 1880 by Rodolpho Lindemann. Recently added to the collection of the Getty Research Institute, this large six-part folding work has not been mentioned in previous studies or in the foremost books on the history of photography in Brazil, suggesting that its existence has not been widely known. Although it bears no signature or stamp, comparison with a drawing based on the photograph made it possible to determine its authorship. This article explores connections with other panoramic images produced in the country in order to propose a framework for thinking about the representation of landscapes and cities according to the panoramic tradition, as well as the question of unknown authorship in photography.