Photographs as Primary Sources Primary Sources Primary sources
- Slides: 8
Photographs as Primary Sources
Primary Sources • Primary sources can include written documents, artifacts, pictures, and photographs. • What might be different about analyzing a photograph compared to other primary sources?
Examining Photographs • What do you think when you see photographs from the past? • Consider the role that photographs play in providing historians with evidence. What can a photograph tell a historian? What can’t it tell?
Analyzing the Photographs • We will look at a set of photographs depicting various issues and/or events around the topic of civil rights. • We will use the National Archives procedure to do this.
The Activity • For two minutes, closely examine the photograph. • Form an overall impression, and then examine individual items in the photograph. • Mentally divide the photograph into quadrants (four parts) and closely look at the items in each part. What new items do you see when doing this?
After Examining the Photograph • Based on your observations, try to draw three inferences from the photograph. • “Based on __________ that I observed from studying the picture, I think this picture may be about (describing, demonstrating) __________. ”
Sourcing and Context • Look at the source information for the photograph. – Title: Drinking fountain on the county courthouse lawn, Halifax, North Carolina – Creator: Vachon, John, 1914 -1975, photographer – Date Created/Published: 1938 April, retrieved from Library of Congress: http: //hdl. loc. gov/loc. pnp/pp. print. • How does that information add to understanding of the photograph in terms of context and source? • What might be some additional questions that you have about the source of the photographs (the photographer)? • What questions may be left unanswered?
