An Archive Worth Sharing
by Mike Davis, Ph.D.,
Head of School
I can stare for hours at historical photography. As a child, I loved to look at photo books of World War II and the Civil War. Today, we photograph everything—typically with mobile phones. Americans tend to photograph somewhat silly things: it's no surprise when our breakfast ends up on Instagram. It is estimated that by 2017, nearly 80% of all photos will be taken with mobile phones, and in 2015, the guess is that last year across the globe, cell phone photography helped humans snap just over one trillion photos.*
Head of School
I can stare for hours at historical photography. As a child, I loved to look at photo books of World War II and the Civil War. Today, we photograph everything—typically with mobile phones. Americans tend to photograph somewhat silly things: it's no surprise when our breakfast ends up on Instagram. It is estimated that by 2017, nearly 80% of all photos will be taken with mobile phones, and in 2015, the guess is that last year across the globe, cell phone photography helped humans snap just over one trillion photos.*
It will be interesting how historians of the future sift through this vast amount of material that we are creating. But, sometimes, images of daily life reveal amazing things about the human experience.
This month, the New York Times has posted online a fascinating project called “Unpublished Black History.” Times staffers dug out never-before-published images from their archives -- reportedly sifting through five million photos and 300,000 negatives. Each of the newly published photos is like a stalwart testimony of the day, as though setting in stone, not just on film, the statement and purpose of a single moment.
Each, as the Times calls them, is a “revealing moment in Black history.” As you might imagine, I have found myself captivated by images of famous figures like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (when he was a high school student) and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. But, there are also poignant and moving photos of daily life. There is one amazing shot of a young black female student and a young white child in a classroom that documents the integration of Princeton public schools in 1964.
These photographs help stir a sense of deep respect for those who have struggled for equal rights in this country, who have laid their lives on the line for a better future. I hope you can take a moment and appreciate these. Even better, take a moment to go to the website with your child and have a discussion about the history of the Civil Rights Movement and African-American history and why it is important that we all must fight for justice.
* Data: InfoTrends 2014 Worldwide Image Capture Forecast
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