Mark Stoneman Profile Photo

Mark R. Stoneman

Historian, editor, and translator for hire (German to English). Longtime resident of Washington, DC, now in Conway, NH, as a caregiver (he/him).

  Historical Images

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    Black woman with sunglasses, skirt, blouse, and jacket with purse on a street in the downtown business district. Mixed race crowd. Particularly noticeable is a white adolescent boy with dark t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers reading her sign as he walks past her, heading in the opposite direction.

    “Daisy Bates takes a walk – Activist Daisy Bates picketing with placard: ‘Jailing our youth will not solve the problem in Little Rock. We are only asking for full citizenship rights.'” Ca. 1957.

    Via NYPL, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Demonstrations Collection, image id 1953728.

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    Two African American boys coming from or going to school. One has a couple books held together by a strap slung over his shoulder. He's wearing a white t-shirt, red sweatshirt or sweater, and a blue cap. The other is wearing a yellow cap and green top of some kind. They are standing in front of New York City brownstones.

    “Two Boys” by Getel Kahn, color print, ca. 1935–43. Note the books the boy in red has slung over his shoulder.

    Via NYPL, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, WPA Art Collection, image id 5179323.

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    Black and white photo: Looking up at circular fire escapes around bay windows, and bas-reliefs under windows on hotel, Chrysler Building just visible at right.

    “Murray Hill Hotel, Manhattan” by Berenice Abbott on November 19, 1935, for her “Changing New York” Federal Art Project.

    Via The New York Public Library, image id 458449867.

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    Black and white photo of a dumpster in a DC alley. The message in block letters painted with stencils reads, 'WHEN THIS IS ALL OVER'.

    “When this is all over, Adams Morgan, Washington, DC” by Tracy Meehleib, April 8, 2020. Via Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2020632316/. License: CC BY-NC-ND.

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    Photo of Mixed Race Sociability in Jim Crow Washington, DC, 1944

    Black and white photo of a convivial scene. More details in caption.

    Pete Seeger at twenty-five entertaining federal workers, sailors, and soldiers with a banjo and song at the opening of the Labor Canteen in Washington, DC, on February 13, 1944. This unsegregated place in a Jim Crow city was sponsored by the Federal Workers of America and the Congress of Industrial Organizations.1 Note First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt enjoying herself in the mixed race and sex audience. On the wall behind the merrymakers are sketches of a hapless character undergoing physical training, perhaps Private Snafu.

    Source: Office of War Information, Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2017864322/

    1. For further details about the Labor Canteen, see the long caption for Washington Area Spark, “Social equality at the Labor Canteen,” https://www.flickr.com/photos/washington_area_spark/54266105006/. ↩︎

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    World War Two Poster Marking the Dignity and Humanity of Black Women on the Home Front

    Poster. The women described in the detailed caption below are separated into different quadrants with the help of a big 'V', which itself is underlined by the text 'for victory'.

    The American Front for Victory – This poster from World War Two operates on two levels. First, it emphasizes the contribution of “The American Front” to the victory for which the nation was fighting. American front because this was about the home front, the people, many of them women, contributing to victory in industry, in agriculture, through service, and with their savings. Second, the name makes an important statement about the women it pictures working. They are Black. In large parts of the country, racist Americans cast the fitness of Black people as American citizens in doubt, to say nothing of questioning their very humanity.1 Here, by contrast, four Black women are depicted doing dignified work for the national cause.

    Moving clockwise from the top, one woman, wearing some kind of civilian uniform, is holding a bucket marked “save” and is participating in either the sale or purchase of “Defense Bonds”; another is working a potato field with the words “strong bodies” underneath; there is a woman in a nurse’s uniform above the label “volunteer service”; and a woman can be seen working on an airplane, perhaps installing its propeller. This is a poster proclaiming the importance of the home front and the dignity and honor of the Black women fighting on it.

    Source: Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Art and Artifacts Division, NYPL, image id psnypl_scf_061.

    1. See a related poster for American men on this blog, one of them Black, captioned “Bonds and justice will smash the Nazis. Not bondage!" ↩︎

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    Yellow poster with brown and a bit of blue. The heads of three Black men are sketched. One is wearing a World War One helmet, one is wearing pilots headgear, and the other appears to be civilian.

    Books Are Weapons – World War Two poster by NYC WPA War Services promoting knowledge about Black history and culture, the war's colonial entanglements in Africa, and the role of Black Americans in national defense. The books referenced were housed in the New York Public Library's renowned Schomburg Collection.

    Source: Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Art and Artifacts Division, NYPL, image id 5211531.

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    Black and white print from engraving: Black men seated on cases, boxes, or crates and playing their instruments. Two tubas, two trombones, one or two saxophones and a drum are in evidence. The drummer's chest and the surface of his drum form the focal point. It is probably night. The image is dark, with light hitting only part of them from the right.

    “WPA Rhythm Band” by Elisabeth Olds, 1937. I love how dynamic this image is, like her “Harlem WPA Street Dance” from the same year.

    Signed and dated print, Federal Art Project, NYC WPA, via Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Art and Artifacts Division, NYPL, image id 5180673.

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    Artist's black, white, and grey image of men and women dancing in the street. It might be summer because the people are well dressed, but the men do not have suit jackets on.

    “Harlem WPA Street Dance” by Elisabeth Olds, 1937. Signed and dated print, Federal Art Project, NYC WPA, via Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Art and Artifacts Division, NYPL, image id 5180674.

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    Color photograph. Top half of African American boy in a buttoned up shirt with a collar and light brown corduroy overalls. He's wearing a black hat with a brim. He's facing the camera, the sun lighting most of him.

    Negro boy near Cincinnati, Ohio by John Vachon for the Farm Security Administration, 1942 or 1943.

    Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2017877922/.

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    A black man's left forearm and fist and a white man's left forearm and fist shown striking a big swaztika. The black man has a broken chain dangling from his wrist. The text reads, 'Bonds and justice will smash the Nazis. Not bondage!'

    Bonds and justice will smash the Nazis, not bondage!

    World War Two poster – The word "bonds" can work three ways here: the bonds or chains pictured here as broken, the bonds that unite us, and U.S. war bonds. The second of these offers the most powerful contrast to "bondage."

    Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Art and Artifacts Division, NYPL, image id psnypl_scf_065.

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    Possibly European landscape with a monk reading a book, absorbed, while pulling a stubborn donkey carrying a goose and other foods.

    I love this image of reading. We’ve all been there, if not with a donkey in tow.

    Source: [Pursuit of knowledge under difficulties] by Wordsworth Thompson, chromolithograph (L. Prang & Co.), 1878., Library of Congress, Popular Graphic Arts Collection, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2016649779/.

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    Inspiring Photo from 1971 for Our Troubled Times

    Black and white photo of men and women conference goers in a social situation of some kind, standing. The women described in the caption are in the foreground. They are the focal point.

    “Isabel Miller and Barbara Gittings hugging librarians” in 1971 at the American Library Association Conference in Dallas, Texas. (Miller is on the left. Gittings is on the right in the floral sleeveless dress.)

    Librarians can be central in the fight against bigotry and for equal rights, which might explain why some gay rights activists were there. (An important example: early professional Black librarians.)

    Photo by Kay Tobin, via the Barbara Gittings and Kay Tobin Lahusen Gay History Papers and Photographs Collection, NYPL Digital Collections, image ID 1606079. 🏳️‍🌈

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    Photo of Joy and Love, 1962

    Her head, one shoulder, and one hand is visible. Soap in hair and forehead. In a shower, the rest of her behind the plastic shower curtain. But all one sees are her radiant eyes and face, the big spontaneous smile or laugh. So much joy.

    So much joy in this photo, so much love: “Barbara Gittings in shower, circa 1962” by Kay Tobin. 🏳️‍🌈

    Via Barbara Gittings and Kay Tobin Lahusen Gay History Papers and Photographs collection, NYPL Digital Collections, image ID 1605708.

    Postscript

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    Old poster, silkscreen color print, showing two deer, a doe and a fawn, caught in the headlights of a large approaching car at night. The road is bounded by trees. The main text below the image reads, 'Don't Kill Our Wild Life' and below that, smaller, 'Department of the Interior, National Park Service'. At the bottom right in small text reads, 'Made by Works Progress Administration - Federal Art Project NYC'.

    Thinking of a member of Orange Oaf's cast of terrible characters…

    Don't Kill Our Wild Life – Department of the Interior, National Park Service – By Works Progress Administration – Federal Art Project NYC – [ca. 1936–40]

    Via Library of Congress.

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    Black and white photo of group of African American men. Twenty are wearing flight suits with pilots headgear and goggles on their heads. Nine sitting on the ground in front are dressed in more ordinary military uniforms.

    Group portrait of a Tuskegee Airmen squadron, U.S. Army Air Corps, ca. 1939–45. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, NYPL Digital Collections, image ID 1823641.

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    Illustration shows a woman diving into the warm waters of Florida after shedding the furs and heavy clothing of winter. Also shows in the background girls flying like birds from cold climates to the tropical warmth of Florida.

    “From Maine to Florida. The Annual Migration of the Bathing-Girl.” By Gordon Ross for Puck, January 11, 1911. Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2011648855/.

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    Pro-Immigration Cartoon, 1903

    Illustration shows President Theodore Roosevelt firing a cannon to send a life-line to a ship in distress on rough seas with dark clouds labeled 'Prejudice' forming overhead; the rope spells out the word 'Tolerance'. A rainbow shines on the left with the word 'Liberty'. In the lower right corner is a quote from 'The President's Reference to Immigrants'.

    “Captains Courageous” by Udo J. Keppler for Puck, July 1, 1903, centerfold, via Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2010652280/.

    Pro-immigration cartoon with Theodore Roosevelt on the left. A U.S. flag is marked by a rainbow with the text “Liberty.” To the right is a ship in the dark marked “Immigration” that is trying to escape the storms of “Prejudice.” The president has shot a rescue line that forms the word “Tolerance.” The quote in the lower right corner reads:

    I feel that we should be peculiarly watchful over them, because of our own history, because we and our fathers came here under like conditions. Now that we have established ourselves, let us see to it that we stretch out the hand of help, the hand of brotherhood, toward the new-comers, and help them as speedily as possible to shape themselves and to get into such relations that it will be easy for them to walk well in the new life.

    – The President’s Reference to Immigrants

    Source of the quote: “At the Consecration of Grace Memorial Reformed Church, Washington, D.C., June 7, 1903,” in A Compilation of the Messages and Speeches of Theodore Roosevelt, ed. Alfred Henry Lewis Bureau of National Literature and Art, 1906), pp. 481–83, quote 482.

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    Blue and white political button with a black and white photo of MLK in the center. The text reads, 'POOR PEOPLES CAMPAIGN FOR POOR POWER' and 'Rev. Dr, Martin Luther King, Jr.' and in quotation marks, 'I have a dream….' Political button with a black border and black text in block letters against a white background. Black and white photo of MLK in the center. The text reads, 'WE MOURN OUR LOSS, Dr. Martin Luther King, 1929-1968.'
    Poster with a tie on top for easy hanging. Simple design: Black text in thick block letters on white background: 'HONOR KING: END RACISM!'

    Now that I’m more than 20 years older than Martin Luther King, Jr., ever had a chance to become, his youth at the time of his murder is much clearer to me, much starker. It makes his achievements seem that much greater and his death all the more painful.

    Pictured above: photos of two buttons and a poster from the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Art and Artifacts Division, The New York Public Library, image IDs 57281864, 57281854, and 58250348.

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    Cartoon drawing of terrified people on the edge of the planet looking up at the sky, which is filled with flying contraptions on their way to the moon, or still awaiting refugees for the journey. The sky and outer space are one, that is, black and filled with stars.

    This funny old German postcard about “the end of the world” caught my attention because of tomorrow’s big event in Washington, DC, Orange Oaf’s return to the White House. The card feels somewhat prophetic, but the earlier threat it references was celestial, not human. Many people were panicking because Earth was expected to pass through the tail of Halley’s Comet on May 19, 1910.

    One of the signs to the right in the postcard advertises “Airplanes for rent | Deliverance from the apocalypse!” The other offers big jugs of gasoline, each containing enough to reach (reichend ) the moon, or pungent enough for the odor to carry (riechend ) that far. The airplanes, dirigibles, and hot air balloons for escaping to the moon look as fanciful as their purported purpose.

    Source: Newberry Library, John I. Monroe collection of fantasy postcards, NL116N96.

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    Poster shows a cartoon of Hitler and Mussolini tacking together a broken puppet representing the axis; the puppet has a large red swastika on its chest.

    Poster: Cartoon of the German and Italian dictators trying to cobble together what was left of their obscene project in 1945.

    Source: Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2015646607.

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    At least nine kids are visible on the ice, one having fallen and holding the leg of another. The kids most clearly visible are boys. Leafless trees surround the pond, and some buildings are visible.

    Color photo by Jack Delano of kids skating and playing hockey on a pond in the vicinity of Brockton, Massachusetts, in December 1940.

    Source: Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2017877371/.

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    Large building with a circular tower on top of it and a Goodyear blimp flying over it. The awning over the front is topped with big, stylized letters that read 'AIR SHOW'. There are people milling about. The vibe is modern, almost futuristic, the style is art deco. The caption on front reads, 'Air show pavilion---The epic of human flight shown within, in graphic sequence. Without,---a mighty searchlight's beam directs the way to the fair. A Century of Progress---Chicago's 1933 World's Fair.'

    I love the art deco lettering on this modernist “Air Show” building from the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair, “A Century of Progress.”

    Source: The Newberry Library Digital Collections, Modern MS Monroe Exposition vol. 28 no. 37.

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