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story prompts
When I was teaching regularly, I often brought in photographs to use as writing prompts. A good photograph can really get a discussion going and imaginations firing.
The Library of Congress is a great resource for old photographs. The Prints and Photographs Division has an online catalogue which is getting bigger all the time. The Bain Collection is online, and it's full of incredible stories waiting to be told.
Here's the blurb about the Bain Collection:
The George Grantham Bain Collection represents the photographic files of one of America's earliest news picture agencies. The collection richly documents sports events, theater, celebrities, crime, strikes, disasters, political activities including the woman suffrage campaign, conventions and public celebrations. The photographs Bain produced and gathered for distribution through his news service were worldwide in their coverage, but there was a special emphasis on life in New York City. The bulk of the collection dates from the 1900s to the mid-1920s, but scattered images can be found as early as the 1860s and as late as the 1930s.
Over the next couple days I'm going to post a couple of the photographs there which are most interesting to me as a storyteller.
I'm starting with one taken in 1908 on the east side of Manhattan. The only information on the photo's page is sparse: a group of women discussing evictions and a rent strike. You can click on the photograph to get a bigger version of it.
What I like about this is the way the women are dressed against the cold, aprons and many layers of skirts and multiple shawls, in contrast to the austere architecture of the church behind them. I imagine what it must have meant for one of these women to join a rent strike, to risk eviction. I imagine each of them with a husband and children and at least one elderly parent, all living together in two small rooms in a walk up. What it would mean to chance losing those rooms. What courage it must have required, and what anger.
November 5, 2005 10:41 PM
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Comments
Everyone comes by a story differently, right? I was hoping to be able to see the edgings on those ladies' shawls, but the pic isn't clear enough on enlarge to do that. Why? Because I am interested in old crochet pattern books, and have one from 1915 (so these ladies wouldn't have access to it, and probably no time to do more than a fringe) but it's intriguing to see how ladies would have used "Clark's Crochet Book, A Collection of Unique and Useful Designs with Full Working Instructions by Mrs. Leroy A. Clark, Price 25 cents."
Posted by: Pam at November 6, 2005 11:12 AM
oooh, Pam, that is fantastic. What a lovely way into the story. Gives me gooseflesh.
Do you think these women could afford a book like that for .25? I wonder if they speak English, or can read at all.
Posted by: Sara Donati at November 6, 2005 01:09 PM
Not sure who (if any) immigrants lived on the East Side, but I am imagining the ladies all gathering for moral support and 'what are we going to do next/if we do get evicted/if our strikes start to actually get results..' and 'we survived worse in Poland/Ireland/Lithuania'
Plus, it really struck me how clean that street looks. Do you think that's only because it is outside the church, which may employ someone to keep the yards tidy so to speak?
Posted by: Alison at November 6, 2005 03:56 PM