http://worldart.sjsu.edu

California State University

April 2009

The World Images site, a project of California State University, is designed for simplicity of use if not aesthetic elegance. It is a utilitarian database well suited to teachers, professors, or students looking for presentation images licensed for educational use on a comprehensive range of subjects including photography, painting, illustration, and material culture with global geographic representation.

The image collections are arranged as thumbnail panes on the home page, each hyperlinked to a list of portfolios that indicate how many images each contains. The site holds an archive of 72,000 images organized into 867 portfolios, and a tutorial shows how to create Community Portfolios. Users can browse the collection using keywords, artists, topics, titles, regions, or periods in quick or advanced search modes. Search results can be viewed as titles with hyperlinked acquisition numbers, as thumbnail images with titles, or as small or zoomable images with their metadata.

Categories include institutional collections in the database, faculty collections, course materials, and a collection of image portfolios correlated to required history topics in the California Educational Standards for grades 4–10. Since these curricular requirements are fairly common across the U.S., and in world history beyond the U.S., this is a valuable resource for teachers.

World Images is rich in images related to children and youth. The "People and Portraits" portfolio contains three sub-categories on children with a total of 1,094 images, some overlapping. They include Children to 1500 (234), Children 1500-2000 (544), and Children of the World (316).

The first is fairly inclusive geographically, but includes many images from Western traditions. The second is almost entirely European and American, and the third includes North and South American, African, Asian, and European children's photos and a few artworks and artifacts. Much of the third collection is the work of photographer Kathleen Cohen.

The following search terms returned images on children and youth: "children" (1000), "childhood" (80), "girl" (382), "boy" (555 items), "infant" (119), and "family" (858). The metadata provided with each image includes title, artist or maker, historical period, region or country of origin, copyright holder of the image, and/or museum holding the object. The individual object view also shows what other collections include the object, and links to other objects by the same artist or unknown generic maker from that culture. The photographs are labeled with title, year, location, and photographer, but nothing further, though some of the titles are very descriptive.

The information associated with World Images is thus limited, providing no further contextualization, nor are there links to descriptive information on museum sites where some are housed, for example. For this reason, the works of art found through this website are starting points for research about children in history rather than destinations. Some images, however interesting, remain mysterious.

Teachers wanting to illustrate already researched lectures or activities with licensed images will find this site a rich resource, especially if the lack of detailed information on the images is not a problem. Interesting objects from the collection can stimulate fruitful discoveries of available research on the web or from books and articles. For example, an image of an ancient baby bottle led to a trove of online information about infant feeding through the centuries.

Teachers can also create thematic collections that can be used for primary source investigations. A number of art images show punishment of children's misbehavior, for example, and children at play, as well as infant equipment from various times and places. These images can be used as exercises in examining primary sources as if they were "found objects" at a site or in an archive.

World History Sources at the Center for History and New Media has extensive lessons, exercises, and scholarly models for analyzing primary sources, including photographs, that could provide tools for working with the rich sources available on this website. A feature called "You be the Historian" could be adapted to interrogating the images from the World Images collections, and would reveal much about childhood by investigating questions to ask, and suggesting how to find answers.

Susan Douglass

George Mason University

World Images is rich in images related to children and youth.

A Separate Place: the Schools P.S. DuPont Built (Wilmington, DE: Hagley Museum and Library, 2003) at http://www.hagley.lib.de.us/hagley-separate-place-packet.pdf, page 29. (accessed April 21, 2009).

Two black and white photographs showing before and after pictures of Blocksom's School in Sussex County in rural Delaware. The first photo (taken in 1917) shows the pupils standing outside the original one-room schoolhouse made of wood. In addition to an outhouse and heat provided by a pot-bellied stove. The second photograph (taken in 1925) shows a new and much larger Blocksom's School, made of brick, with indoor toilet, multiple classrooms, and heating.

Robert E. Williams Photographic Collection

Digital Library of Georgia and GALILEO in association with the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library

April 2009

The 84 photographs in the Robert E. Williams Photographic Collection database were taken by Robert Williams, an African American who operated a photography studio, R. Williams and Son, in Augusta, Georgia from 1888 to roughly 1908. The photographs themselves date from 1872-1898, and thus span the brief period of post-civil war society when African Americans temporarily enjoyed augmented civic rights and social mobility before plunging into exacerbated racial segregation in the 1890s. The images document various aspects of the domestic, working, and religious lives of African Americans in Georgia. Children are featured both as central subjects and background observers in 34 photographs in the Collection. Williams captured them playing, toiling, getting baptized, and eating watermelon.

These arresting images document telling elements of African Americans' daily lives in Georgia during this period. Unfortunately, many of them are grainy or shadowy, making it difficult to decipher important detail in them, such as subject' facial expressions. The photographs are presented on the Collection’s site in thumbnail views in an unsearchable browse format, but since this the small database is small, scanning through them to find images dealing with children is feasible. Another alternative, however, is to search the collection from the Digital Library of Georgia web site. From there, a basic search of "Robert E.Williams children" turns up 34 images in the collection. Searching the items in this way also provides users with slightly more bibliographic information about the pieces (for example, more detailed titles) than are available on the Collection's own web site page.

The site provides no contextual material on the photographer, the circumstances under which the photos were taken, the generation of their titles, or the contemporary experiences of his subjects. Consequently, most instructors will need to refer students to other reading materials. For the latter point, another site at the University of Georgia, "Georgia African American History and Culture" would serve as a good starting point for further research.

In photographic collections from this period (for example, the "Images in Canada" collection), family portraits are prominently featured. Unusually, however, in the Williams Collection, only one photograph depicts what is explicitly labeled as a "family"; a second pictures a "family cabin". More often, the images' titles refer to "groups" of people, or state simply, "Photograph of an African American woman with six children. . . ." Similarly, there are no photographs of children in school. Instructors might initiate students' examination of children's history as treated in this site by asking them to consider why family portraiture—or school photographs—are so atypically under-represented here. Is their absence in some way a reflection of assumptions made by the person who titled the images, a manifestation of the photographer's choices, or evidence of his subjects' realities? Why might children have been more often presented in these photographs in other settings—for instance, playing or working—than in the settings of the school and the family?

One feature that makes this collection unusual is that, atypically for this time period, the photographer as well as his subjects were African American. Instructors might ask students to reflect upon whether they think this fact visibly affected the way children are depicted in such images as "Photograph of two children standing in front of house in Richmond County, Georgia, in late 19th century" and "Photograph of twin African American toddlers sitting in the grass and eating watermelon." These and other images from the site might fruitfully be studied alongside other contemporary primary sources documenting 19th-century African American history, including the Library of Congress's "Pamphlets from the Daniel A.P. Murray Collection". Contemporaneous with Williams's photographs are several annual reports of the National Association for the Relief of Destitute Colored Women and Children in the Murray Collection. Also included are appendices containing several letters by children themselves. Students might compare these disparate representations of 19th-century African American children’s lives and analyze the reasons for Williams' distinctive portrayal of children’s experiences.

Nora E. Jaffary

Concordia University

The 84 photographs in the Robert E. Williams Photographic Collection database were taken by Robert Williams, an African American who operated a photography studio, R. Williams and Son, in Augusta, Georgia from 1888 to roughly 1908.

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/pp/ahiihtml/ahiiabt.html

Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division

April 2009

The impressive photography of the Abdul-Hamid II Collection contains 1,819 photographs from the Ottoman Empire. Dated from approximately 1880 to 1893, the images depict scenes within the borders of modern Turkey, as well as Ottoman holdings in Greater Syria, Greece, and modern Iraq. Teachers and students of the history of children and youth will be particularly taken by the vast array of education-themed photographs, which reveal a strong emphasis placed on schooling by the Ottoman Empire at the time.

The photos in this collection were originally presented to the Library of Congress by Sultan Abdul-Hamid II in 1894. Most of the photos promote the Empire's modernization, with institutions such as schools, hospitals, military barracks, medical and law schools, and fire departments featuring prominently. A keyword search on "school" returns 546 images.

One of the most interesting elements of the collection are the many images of school children from the 19th century, particularly in Istanbul and surrounding areas of modern-day Turkey. There are also several images depicting school lessons, with an emphasis on cultural trends, such as physical fitness, art education, and schooling for the handicapped. See, for example, this "Group photograph of the students and the teachers of the school for the deaf."

Scholars and educators will be impressed by the many portraits of school children available in the collection. Using the website’s search function, keywords such as "girl," "boy," and "education" reveal tens of portraits of children in their school uniforms.

One of the more common portrait styles for children is to pair kids together. [Students, orphan school, Darüssafaka] These photos are fascinating primary documents that reveal important social indicators, including schoolboy and schoolgirl fashions (both in terms of uniforms and dress clothing), aesthetic notions about presenting children in portraiture, and elements of class and ethnicity in school populations of the Ottoman Empire.

Another essential element of this collection for those who study children’s history in the Ottoman Empire is the emphasis on modern educational facilities and contemporary methods of education. There are several photos highlighting the modern architecture of educational institutions, as well as images that reveal the scope of children’s education in the Ottoman Empire. Not only are private institutions represented, but mosque schools, orphanages, and schools for the deaf and blind are depicted, along with portraits of children attending these facilities. [Students, school for the blind] Schools for art and various trades are also depicted, and these images reveal fascinating gender assumptions, as it is girls who are attending art schools, whereas boys are taking part in trade school education.

An interesting assignment would be to have students search through the images and compare and contrast elements of the portrait photography. For instance, students could compare and contrast clothing styles, students’ ages and genders, and the types of schools depicted. Then, they could extrapolate upon various elements of Ottoman life in the late 19th century, including topics such as the increasing European influence on the Empire, the role of physical fitness and militarization in education, and the increasing diversity of educational options in the Ottoman polity.

The images are well displayed on dedicated pages, and are available as thumbnails, web-ready JPEG files, and uncompressed archival TIFF files. Full archival citation information is displayed, as well as clear information about how to purchase copies of some images.

The primary drawback of this website is its organization. From the search page users can preview all images, browse Library of Congress subject and format headings or names of creators or conduct broad searches or searches on specific fields. An exterior search engine (similar to Google) reveals a broad subject index, but there is no link from the main page to direct visitors there. This page will lead viewers to a comprehensive index, but without this knowledge, those looking for specific images or topics must rely on the Library of Congress search engine featured on the home page. Because of this flaw, viewers may find what they are looking for but miss related topics.

Despite this flaw, this collection is a rich resource. The photographs provice an excellent sense of the way that Abdul-Hamid II wanted Americans to view his empire. Moreover, the many images of educational facilities, as well as the myriad portraits of school children, illustrate a fascinating connection between education and modernity in the Ottoman Empire and its image projection abroad, one in which teachers and students should find much to explore.

Nancy L. Stockdale

University of North Texas

One of the most interesting elements of the collection are the many images of school children from the 19th century, particularly in Istanbul and surrounding areas of modern-day Turkey.

http://www.imagescanada.ca/index-e.html

Library and Archives Canada

February 2009

The "Images Canada" site showcases thousands of photographs (interspersed with occasional cartoons) found in the collections of 15 Canadian cultural establishments, including the Canada Science and Technology Museum, the University of Toronto Library, and the Glenbow Library and Archives, an institution focusing on the history of the Canadian West. The site includes thousands of images featuring children in Canadian history that instructors might potentially utilize for class discussions and course assignments. However, instructors and students should note that they will likely need to do additional research and reading in order to make effective use of the resources found on this site.

The images in the collection include both formal portraits and candid shots and focus particularly on the period from the 1880s to the 1950s. Children are featured in photographs dealing with an eclectic range of topics, but are prominent in the themes of native history, immigration, schools, church, and family life. Photos dealing with these topics might be fruitfully adapted to classroom use. Focusing on family portraits, for example, instructors might ask students to study what the changing conventions of portraiture across time reveal about changing dynamics of family life and children's position in it. Or they might compare portrait conventions among different immigrant communities or examine what the staging of boys' and girls' portraits reveals about attitudes toward gender.

The database is searchable by key word. A search of "children" upturns over 6,000 hits, so researchers will likely want to narrow their searches down by doing boolean searches; "children Inuit" hits a more manageable 217 images and "children school" 833. However, the search function is a little too rigid and teachers should therefore instruct their students to spend some time browsing though the site rather than dismissing unfruitful key word searches. For example, while "children illness" yields no results, "children polio" does turn up 6 images.

Furthermore, some of the interesting descriptors of images on the site are not indexed, and so would unfortunately not be retrieved in a search. For instance, a search of "childcare" turns up no hits. However, the photograph "First Crop, Teepee Ranch" reveals one: "A.M. Bezanson and his son on a horse-drawn mower, cutting the first crop on Teepee Ranch in 1909." The infant is perched on his father's lap while the latter performs this no doubt taxing physical task. This snapshot and others like it, including "Mrs. Roy Benson (Verna) and children with chicks, Benson homestead, Munson, Alberta" document how early 20th-century Canadians adapted children—and the responsibility of their care—into their everyday working lives.

The site's "Educational Resources" section has some promising lesson plan ideas, but most of them are aimed at younger students. Other elements of this site include "Image trails" and "Photo Essays" – groups of images organized around 29 themes dealing mainly with geography, modes of transportation, and select historical topics. Most of these will not be especially useful to those interested in children's history, although the Calgary in the 1950s photo essay does feature a number of images of children in its "family" link. Instructors might use this group of photos as well as information from the "family values" introductory essay by asking students to consider what idealizations of family life—and its possible disruptions—the images document.

However, in this collection, as in other portions of the website collections, teachers may be frustrated by the insufficient background information available about each image. For instance, the last photo in this section pictures an adolescent female wearing jeans and reading on a couch. The caption reads: "Blue jeans: acceptable at home but not school in 1955." But no further information about the image—or its caption—is provided. So instructors will have to prepare students (or require that they prepare themselves) with both relevant contextual information and an appreciation of how to approach the interpretation of such photographs as sources. On the latter issue, instructors might find useful an essay available at: http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/education/008-3080-e.html (another website focusing on Canadian photographic history).

Nora E. Jaffary

Concordia University

The site includes thousands of images featuring children in Canadian history that instructors might potentially utilize for class discussions and course assignments.

http://www.metmuseum.org

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

February 10, 2009

The vast collection of the Metropolitan Museum is effectively arranged and integrated on the www.metmuseum.org website. Navigation of the site is straightforward, enabling efficient browsing or research. Although no specific essays or exhibits on children and youth are found on the site, several hundred artworks relevant to the topic can be located by searching the Collection Database or the Timeline of Art History (TOAH)—more than sites dedicated to the subject.

The Collection Database of 129,022 objects can be searched as a whole, by subject, by curatorial department, or by exhibit. The collection database search is comprehensive, and returned 3629 entries under "children." Childe Hassam is a distracter in this keyword search, but the search "Children NOT Childe" reduced the return to 319 items. "Boy" returned many distracters, but "girl" returned 954 items, and "infant" returned 252 items. "Toys" returned only 21 items, indicating a limitation of the museum's collection in that area. "Youth" returned 186 works and "young" 1741 items. The biggest drawback of the collection search was that many of the works are associated with placeholder images, although the metadata may help locate images elsewhere. As digitization of the collection proceeds, this may improve.

The TOAH is an unmatched resource for educators. The 6,000 included artworks are organized by three integrated elements: maps, timelines, and thematic essays. World and regional maps correlate artwork to eleven world eras and locate it in ten world regions. Timelines place the artworks in historical context, and include key events, political, stylistic and technological periodization. Eight hundred thematic essays provide historical context for groups of artwork and discuss characteristics, techniques, and significance. The essays reveal connections among civilizations and regions, and provide material for comparative study.

Educators searching for information on children in art can locate artworks featuring children and youth by a search of the TOAH, which seems more rewarding than the database search because all of the works are associated with images, and they are easily placed in context by TOAH's features. The searches are conveniently shown by category, so the user can bring up all relevant artworks, essays, timelines or other occurrences with one click.

A TOAH search of "children" found the term in 23 timelines, 153 thematic essays, and 396 works of art. "Figure, Child" in the Subject Index returned 21 essays and 80 works of art, each shown as a thumbnail image with titles. On the subject of childbirth, 15 artworks can be viewed. Terms such as "girl" (97 works), "boy" (9) and "young" or "youth" (4) returned artworks from across the globe and the eras.

An activity using the 97 artworks under "girl" might compare the relative age connoted by the term in various cultures and periods. Some depict small children, while others are clearly young women. A selection of western European drawings and paintings could focus on the changing definition of girlhood over time or explore symbols and objects associated with girlhood. Some of the artworks show girls in active social roles, playing sports and games, fulfilling ritual roles, or being mourned in funerary works. Some of the works are expressions of girls' work in various societies, such as needlework, preparation of trousseaus, or manual labor at home. In short, the collection can be used to gather ideas about girlhood over time and across cultures. Similar explorations about youth and boys could be made. Educators will find many ways to place childhood in historical context using this website.

Susan Douglass

George Mason University

Educators will find many ways to place childhood in historical context using this website.

http://museumofnyc.doetech.net/voyager.cfm

Museum of the City of New York

January 2009

The Byron Collection at the Museum of the City of New York is an archive of 22,000 photographs taken by The Byron Company—a prominent New York photography studio—between 1890 and 1942. The Byron photographers took as its subjects all manner of social life in and around New York; the collection includes private subjects (family portraits and home photographs), but the bulk of the collection documents public life and public institutions, many of which directly involved children. The photographs here portray the lives of children from all social classes – at play, at work, in hospitals, churches, schools, and many other contexts.

While the collection extends to 1942, the majority of images are from the turn of the last century, between the 1890s and the 1910s. The finely detailed visual quality of silver gelatin prints lends a hauntingly "real" quality to the images, which does justice to the frames crowded with numerous people and objects; in their enlarged state, especially if screened in a classroom, these photos not only attract attention, they almost demand it.

By searching for "children," "boys," and "girls," one will find thousands of photographs pertinent to the study of youth history. Children's recreational activities are well represented here; one can see boys and girls playing in the water at Coney Island, Atlantic City, Rockaway Beach, and other seaside spots; ice skating in Central Park; and racing or playing ball in various New York public playgrounds. Indeed, a teacher could use these photographs to good effect in a lesson about the rise of the public playground as a social institution that has evolved over the decades. In this photograph a child dangles from the sort of equipment that was later banished from playgrounds (like monkey bars) for being "too dangerous."

Children's homes are depicted in a wide variety of photographs from both the wealthy and poor positions in the social spectrum. A lesson on the daily lives of children from different economic classes could juxtapose "Social functions; children's party," in which a number of well-dressed children sit at the splendidly appointed dining table of a wealthy home, with "Slum interior, 1896." The collection boasts numerous images of wealthy children posed in and around their homes; a smaller number show children from the lower classes playing on street corners throughout New York City, from the Lower East Side up to Harlem.

One of this collection's strengths is its documentation of institutions created during the Progressive Era to serve children. An abundance of photographs portray scenes at the Children's Aid Society, the Emanuel Lehman Foundation for crippled children, the New York Foundling Hospital, the New York Association for the Blind, and various other schools, hospitals, and orphanages. Viewers can see interior images demonstrating the daily activities of the children in these institutions. Even the titles of these organizations are sometimes worthy tools in the study of history: "The School For Feeble-Minded Children" is a noteworthy relic of a time before Americans became concerned with sensitive language.

Another strength of the Byron Collection is its images of children at a variety of schools – exercising, studying, performing in theatrical events, and going on field trips. These photos include religious as well as secular schools. Besides the many neatly-posed photos of Sunday School classes from both Catholic and Protestant churches, there are some more candid photos that attest to the role of churches in teaching life skills; one photo, for example, shows children practicing sewing at St. Thomas' Chapel. Students of youth history will find much in these photographs to prompt considerations about the history of American education.

Unfortunately, the site's navigation system leaves a lot to be desired. Viewers have the option of searching the collection for "keywords," or of browsing a pre-selected sampling of subjects categorized by the museum (each subject, in that browsing function, includes a scant 20-30 pictures). More results will surface in the search function, but there is no index or site-map to show, at a glance, all the categories of available images. This lack of an index is one factor that makes the Byron Collection far less user-friendly than the Library of Congress's photograph collections.

Nor does the Byron Collection's search function reliably include words from the titles of the photographs. One can search only by keywords, not titles. This will pose problems for a teacher who locates an image he likes and then tries to access it later, in a classroom. Such images must be bookmarked when you find them – or else you will need to conduct the general search all over again, and wade through hundreds of hits. For example, photos from the aforementioned "The School For Feeble-Minded Children" can only be found in a general search for "school." Typing "feeble-minded" into the search box – or even just "feeble" – will yield nothing, because "school" is a subject keyword, but "feeble" isn't. A feeble-minded site design, indeed.

Despite these navigational headaches, the Byron Collection – with its wealth of photos of children of all social classes in a wide variety of circumstances and activities – is a valuable resource for studying the history of childhood in one of the most dynamic times and places of modern U.S. history. With enough preparation (and bookmarking), teachers can adapt this extensive resource to any lesson on American childhood in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Ilana Nash

Western Michigan University

The Byron Collection at the Museum of the City of New York is an archive of 22,000 photographs taken by The Byron Company—a prominent New York photography studio—between 1890 and 1942.

Why I Taught the Source

Most state-level world history standards include study of primary sources and encourage the use of visual documents. Although students are surrounded by visual stimuli, they "look" but seldom "see." As a result, students often view photographs as snapshots of reality; they are more "true" because they capture "what really, really happened."

For historians, there are several ongoing debates about the periodization of childhood and its transformation over time. When did children become important and in what capacity? As economic contributors? As the focus of emotional attachment or as subjects prone sentimental idealization? As political symbols or pawns? The goals for this exercise are, therefore, two: to demonstrate how images are socially constructed and to begin to get a handle on the changing role of children in American society.

I use a print handout for this exercise. Detail is important in daguerreotype, and print's greater resolution preserves the image's subtleties and color. In contrast, computer monitors or LCD projectors blur details and shift color. So, a color handout is provided in PDF format.

How I Introduce the Source

My introduction to the source consists of two parts: the technical and the personal. Daguerreotypes were influenced by their technical requirements, so I take a little time to explain the history of daguerreotypes and how they were made. Experience has demonstrated that one of the easiest and most accessible methods is via a clip from the J. Paul Getty Museum (approx. 6 min.). Whatever the approach, it is important to emphasize several elements dictated by a daguerreotype's technical requirements.

First, the daguerreotype necessitated a relatively long exposure time; in other words, the photographer's subject had to sit still for an extended period of time. (You may want to have students attempt to maintain a smile for 20 seconds to demonstrate the difficulty of holding a pose for even a relatively short time; long exposure times also explain the absence of smiling sitters in early daguerreotypes.)

Second, even though daguerreotypes put personal images within the reach of many more people, they remained relatively expensive and reserved for those who could afford them.

Third, daguerreotypes were one-off images in that they could not be reproduced; a daguerreotype was not a negative that could be reprinted multiple times.

Fourth, daguerreotypes were fragile; the image could be easily scratched. Because a daguerreotype was essentially a mirror, it could tarnish from exposure like a silver spoon. (See Fig. 2.)

Last but not least, a color daguerreotype was possible. For an additional cost, daguerreotype images could be hand-colored with special paints.

The personal part of the introduction draws on students' own experience and centers on the question: What do we, as human beings choose to remember with photographs? I ask students individually or in groups to think for several minutes and make a list of images they or their families keep. What photographs appear on the walls at home? In family photo albums? On social networking sites? The discussion generally turns up baby pictures, birthday parties, first communions, bar (bat) mitzvah parties, vacation snapshots, high school and college graduations, weddings, basic training or officer training completions or promotions, 50th wedding anniversaries, the unfortunate party photo, and so on. (For some ethnic groups, the memorial or postmortem photograph is still common, and it is worth noting this phenomenon.)

As the students or groups make their contributions, the list goes up on the board or on-screen. Once the lists are complete, I want the students to differentiate between professional and amateur images in order to maintain the parallel between daguerreotypes and contemporary studio photographs, so I ask students to determine which of their photographic choices were taken in a studio or by a professional photographer. Their selections go in second, smaller list. Once the latter list is complete, we discuss the elements common to the people or events captured in the images (milestones, achievements, celebrations) and what events are missing from the list (people at work).

We finish the discussion with two final questions: What does analysis of the lists tell us about what people in the late 20th and early 21st century choose to remember? And, more specifically, what do we choose to remember about children and youth? With that, we shift centuries and turn to the daguerreotypes.

Reading the Source

I've approached reading the sources by asking the students to work both individually and in groups, and either strategy works well. Usually the size of the class dictates whether group or individual work will be most effective. In either case, I begin by asking students to note who and what is in each of the images. What are the sitters wearing? How would you characterize the clothing? If there two people, do they lean toward one another or away? How are their arms or hands posed? Where are the subjects looking? Are there any objects in the portraits?

Once we have established what is in the photographs, we move onto more abstract considerations.

• What can we make of the hat in Fig. 3?
• What does the clothing suggest about the social class of the sitters? (Note the gloves in Fig. 3.)
• Why, for example in Fig. 3, might flowers be associated with girls?
• What do the flowers contribute to ideas about girls, in Fig. 1? Or, do they appear in the image for a different reason?
• What does the boy's association with animals in Fig. 4 suggest?
• How do the colorized images add to our understanding of the sitters' social class?

There are also elements in the images that are ambiguous and underscore the limits to historical inquiry. Is the donkey in Fig. 4 a pet or a working animal? We don't know without corroborating evidence. Is there evidence solely from the image to support either claim? If not, how would you go about finding evidence for your claim?

Reflections

To reflect, I ask the class to return to our discussion about contemporary photographs and articulate what has changed (or not) with regard to the depiction of childhood and youth in photographs from roughly 1840 to the present. What usually emerges from the discussion are observations and arguments supporting the importance of children and their central place in family history and photographic memory in both centuries. Students are also apt to view both contemporary and 19th-century children's photographs no longer as simple images but as constructs, encapsulating gender definitions and class distinctions. Students also note the transformations; namely, an increased emphasis on adolescence (proms, school graduations, athletics), an absence of postmortem or mortuary photographs, a greater informality in dress and pose, and few if any images of children or youth at work.

Last but not least, I pass out 4x6 note cards and ask students to write a paragraph in which they make a brief argument—including a thesis and two pieces of evidence in support of their proposition—about childhood in the 19th century based on the daguerreotypes. Alternately, I ask them to post an argument paragraph to their blogs.

Paula Petrik

George Mason University

175

Color photograph of two young Japanese girls--perhaps 9 or 10 years old--carrying younger siblings strapped to their backs.