[Personal_archives] Last thoughts of the first day

[Jane Britton]

Martha's 'last thought" resonated strongly with me when I read them
yesterday. It has been my experience that families tend to relinquish their
photograph albums when there is no longer a relationship between memory and
photography, or when the keeper forsees an interruption in the chain of
"storytelling and conversation." We as archivists are often in the position
of knowing more about the family than the family themselves; we identify
people, places, events and attach the stories and facts gleaned from the
diaries, letters etc. in an archive of which the albums and photographs are
only a part. The donors see us as a place that is "safe"; that is, not only
are the physical objects preserved, but the memory is also. In the course of
preparing the material for "public" use we take the disparate parts of a
family archive and recast a web of meaning and context around them, in turn
offering to the family the possibility of a re-discovered narrative
(although obviously never the original one). Our position becomes almost
that of extended family, and for the researcher ours is the voice that is
the first encountered -- so the narrative "burden" passes from the private
to the public sphere.  

The concept of "public" vs "private": we have a number of photograph albums
kept by girls and young women, many documenting time spent away from home at
school and on holidays. These are not public even at the family level; the
privacy of these albums is ensured by the obscure narrative whose language
is understood only by the participants in the experiences thus documented.
Teachers and fellow classmates all have nick-names with significance lost in
time; captions tend to exist only to reinforce the memory of the participant
in a clique with reference to shared misdemeanours, crushes and escapades.
The intended audience is small and entrance otherwise granted only by a
"gatekeeper". 

A final observation: I've always wondered why so few people are identified
in early photograph albums, and feel envious of the complacent assumption
thus displayed that someone would always know who they were. Alas, how many
rootless souls inhabit these albums, as indistinguishable as 'rabbit's
friends and relations"  -- alas for us who try to document a living
community with the images of its forbears.

Jane Britton
Archivist, Special Collections
University of Waterloo Library
200 University Ave. W. Waterloo ON N2L 3G1
(519) 885-1211 x32445  FAX: (519) 888-4322  


-----Original Message-----
From: personal_archives-bounces at mailman.yale.edu
[mailto:personal_archives-bounces at mailman.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Martha
Langford
Sent: Monday, October 27, 2008 6:23 PM
To: Personal_archives at mailman.yale.edu
Subject: [Personal_archives] Last thoughts of the first day

About the notion of photographs as launching pads for oral history: 
aren't we really talking about memory? What I've argues elsewhere about 
the relationship between memory and photography in photographic albums 
is that the content and organization of the photographs preserve the 
characteristics of orality - that is, the photographs are a scaffolding 
for storytelling and conversation. I think this recognition is important 
because it changes the way we read the album - we should not read it, as 
a book, but understand that the narrative is, as you say, 
multi-directional. Orality offers both narrative and its interruption.

Our fascination with photography is its provision of visual facts and 
photographic experience in one neat package. Photographic interpreters 
like facts, but they are also drawn to good yarn and they look for its 
spark in the image. Photographs are not just taken, they are occasioned 
by a constellation of factors that make the moment seem significant.

'Night all.

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