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

    ∞

    Black and white sketch of Black men and women in their Sunday best singing under the guidance of a choir director.

    “Spirituals” by Lillien Richter for the Works Progress Administration, ca. 1935–43. Print from engraving, signed by artist, via NYPL Digital Collections, image 5179325.

    ∞

    Pre–World War Two Pictures from the Schomburg Collection of Negro Literature

    A man at his desk and a woman typist next to him on a small typing work station, so to speak. Heavy wooden book cases with glass fronts are visible, as are modern metal filing cabinets, books, and art. A window allows natural light in.

    African American men and women seated at classic heavy library reading room tables. A large and heavy glass-front wooden book is visible and full of many books. Also visible are art objects of various kinds. The readers are all respectably dressed, that is, era appropriate, if Hollywood movies of middle class Americans can be trusted. Windows allow light in from the outside.

    Top: “The Schomburg Collection of Negro Literature, Books by and about the Negro, Curator: Dr. Lawrence D. Reddick” (ca. 1920–40). Bottom: “135th Street, Schomburg Room, Readers” (1940).

    Via NYPL Digital Collections, images 1253134 and 1252992.

    ∞

    'A Bit of War History' – Three Paintings by Thomas Waterman Wood (1865–66)

    Description from The Met: 'This work, painted at the close of the Civil War, forms a narrative triptych … of African American military service. In 'The Contraband' … the self-emancipated man appears in a U.S. Army Provost Marshall General office, eager to enlist.' He is raising his hat, and the U.S. flag is visible behind him.

    "The Contraband"

    'The Recruit' depicts the same man as a proud new soldier wearing union blue with a rifle slung over his shoulder.

    "The Recruit"

    In 'The Veteran,' the same man appears on crutches because he is missing his lower left leg. His clothes are civilian, but he's got a Union army cap on. He is saluting.

    "The Veteran"

    The word “contraband” referred to an enslaved person who had escaped. Given that the term usually indicated illegally imported or exported goods, its dehumanizing quality in the context of someone who has escaped bondage is palpable. Here, however, it stands in contrast to the painting, which shows a man, not a chattel or a caricature.1

    The other two paintings see the same figure transformed into a soldier and a veteran. Both of these images underlined the figure’s manhood. With time, in fact, military service came to be associated with masculinity and citizenship in an age of people’s wars fought in North America and Europe.2

    From this point of view, the paintings represent a message not only of self-emancipation through military service but of modern masculine citizenship shortly before the nineteenth amendment was ratified. In the West, this image of manhood and military service reached its high point in World Wars One and Two.

    1. Digital images via The Met, objects 84.12a, 84.12b, and 84.12c. ↩︎

    2. Mark Stoneman, “War, Gender, and Nation in 19th-Century Europe: A Preliminary Sketch,” blog, June 23, 2017. ↩︎

    ∞

    Photo is described in common caption. Ernestine Eckstein can be seen from the side, one Black woman in the midst of white men.

    Photo is described in common caption. In this one Ernestine Eckstein is facing forward and enough of her sign is visible to deduce the rest.
    Photo is described in common caption. In this one Barbara Gittings is facing forward, and her sign reads

    Intersections: three photos of Ernestine Eckstein in a 1965 picket line outside the White House protesting Federal discrimination against gay people in civil and military service and their obtaining security clearances. Her sign reads, “DENIAL OF EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY IS IMMORAL.” Eckstein was a Black woman, whereas most of the other picketers appear to have been white men. Another lesbian activist, white, is visible in one photo: Barbara Gittings. The photographer was Gitting’s white partner, Kay Tobin.

    Photos via the Barbara Gittings and Kay Tobin Lahusen Gay History Papers and Photographs Collection, NYPL Digital Collections, images 1605765, 1605764, and 1605766

    ∞

    📽️ I had fun watching the pre-Code “This is the Night,” dir. Frank Tuttle (Paramount, 1932). Its primary purpose was to be a bit racy and full of laughs. (Thelma Todd’s character loses her dress more than once, catching it in a car door, in a cabinet drawer, and on a fence…) The story begins in Paris, before moving to Venice. It is free of fascism, despite the Italian setting, but the incorruptible protagonist played by Lili Damita is clearly hungry in an early scene, a Depression-related circumstance to which the wealthy men appear oblivious. The comedy takes enough twists and turns that it’s not clear who will end up with who for much of the time.

    Two-page color advertisement featuring ad copy and stylish sketches of a couple in the dark, cupid taking aim at a woman, an a woman who has lost her dress next to a man.

    Advertisement from The Film Daily (January–June 1932).

    ∞
    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.

    ∞

    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.

    ∞
    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.

    ∞

    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.

    ∞

    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/. ↩︎

    ∞

    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!" ↩︎

    ∞
    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.

    ∞

    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.

    ∞

    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.

    ∞

    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/.

    ∞
    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.

    ∞

    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/.

    ∞

    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. 🏳️‍🌈

    ∞

    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

    ∞
    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.

    ∞
    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.

    ∞

    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/.

← Newer Posts Older Posts →