Photos Tell the Story

 

Last week I wrote about using memoirs and other personal accounts to research a historical novel. This week I’ll cover the benefits of using old photos to supplement those resources.

Again I’m going to draw my examples mainly from the research I did for Desert Jewels because the War Relocation Authority hired professional photographers to take thousands of photographs during the removal and internment of the Japanese Americans living on the West Coast. The photos were presumably intended to show the country that the Japanese Americans were being treated humanely, but some, especially by Dorothea Lange, ended up being censored because they showed a different story. Fortunately, they have since been released and are available for historical research.

In most instances, the Japanese Americans were originally sent to assembly centers, which were intended as temporary homes until more permanent camps were built. The photo at the top of the page shows four children, presumably siblings, after arriving at the Turlock Assembly Center. Notice the tags they had to wear for identification but which also made them feel like a number rather than a name.

Then there is this photograph, showing the horse stables that were turned into makeshift “apartments” at Tanforan Assembly Center and were occupied for months before the families living in them were transferred to the Central Utah War Relocation Center, commonly known as Topaz. As you can see from the photo, living conditions at Tanforan were not humane.

The third photo is a panoramic view of Topaz. Several families were crowded into each of those barracks. Worse, the desert was a desolate setting for the Japanese Americans, most of who were used to the lush vegetation of western California.

Or to use a research example from another book, here is how downtown Chicago looked a day or two after the Great Chicago Fire had burned itself out. (The photo shows the corner of State and Madison.)

Memoirs and other personal experience accounts are the most important research sources, but photos can supplement that research by providing a more a vivid picture (literally and figuratively) of what life would have been like.

And that makes them another valuable research tool.

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Dorothea Lange took the first two photographs and Francis Stewart took the third. All three are in the public domain because they were taken by War Relocation Authority photographers as part of the photographers’ official duties as employees of the United States government.

The last photo is in the public domain because of its age.