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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    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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    Public Domain Image Archive, pdimagearchive.org.

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    “Digitization Complete for World-Renowned Franco Novacco Map Collection,” www.newberry.org….

    Newly digitized map collection makes over 750 sixteenth- and seventeenth-century maps available online.

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    Color photo of three women installing things in a shiny metal round structure. The front part (image foreground) has a wider circumference than the rear part (image background). The bodies of the women, one standing and doing something overhead, framed by the other two working on something closer to the floor, seem almost choreographed, embodying the dignity and high purpose of their labor.

    Women installing assemblies and fixtures in the tail fuselage of a B-17F bomber (Flying Fortress) under construction at the Douglas Aircraft Company in Long Beach, California, in October 1942. The bodies of the women seem almost choreographed, embodying the dignity and high purpose of their labor. Photo by Alfred T. Palmer for the U.S. Office of War Information.

    Source: Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Color Photographs, Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2017878924/.

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    Propaganda poster illustrating falling bombs from a plane bearing swastikas above a picture of a frightened mother and child. Background is pink. Spanish text is red. the bombs, plane, mother, and child are in varying shades of black. Spanish text: '¡Acusamos de asesinos a los facciosos! Niños y mujeres caen inocentes. Hombres libres, repudiad a todos los que apoyen en la retaguardia al fascismo. He aqui las victimas.'

    Poster from the Spanish Civil War, ca. 1936–39. The main text reads, “We charge the rebels as assassins! Innocent children and women die. Free men, repudiate all those who support fascism in the rearguard.” The text, bottom right, with the arrow pointing at the mother and child reads, “Here are the victims.” Note, too, the black and red triangle of the Anarchists in the lower right-hand corner.

    Source of image and main text translation: Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego, https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/object/bb5188576r. This page also offers historical context and analysis.

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    Cartoon ringing in 1911, the new year personified by a mischievous youngster in an airplane in the sky, who Old Man 1910, standing on the ground next to his wrecked car, is gesticulating at. Caption at the bottom; 'The old and the new.'

    “The old and the new” – front-page cartoon by Bryant Baker for Puck, December 28, 1910. Source: Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2011648851/.

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    Black-and-white photo of a nurse, medical bag in hand, wearing snow shoes in order to make her way across the snowy land. There's a pine tree as well.

    Rural health nurse, upstate New York, by Lewis Wickes Hine for the Milbank Memorial Fund, ca. 1934. The New York Public Library, image ID 460823.

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    Black and white photo of eight sled dogs pulling a man in a race, Mt. Chocorua in the background.

    Sled dog race in Tamworth, New Hampshire, on February 28, 1990 with Mt. Chocorua in the background. Source: Bruce Bedford Archive.

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    Black-and-white photograph with parts of two train carriages visible, Pullman sleeping cars. Snow-covered mountains in background, piles of snow in foreground. People from urban areas further south, presumably Boston, are gathering outside in their winter coats. Some suitcases and skies are present.

    “Skiers arriving early in the morning with the weekend ‘ski-meister.’ North Conway, New Hampshire, center of the Eastern Slopes ski territory,” 1940, by Marion Post Walcott.

    Source: Farm Security Administration Photographs, New York Public Library Digital Collections, image ID 58859979.

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    Blue, light blue, red, black, and white poster with stylized text and three stylized ice skaters in the center

    Iowa Art Project WPA poster for a Winter Sports Festival on Jan. 20, 1940, in Hubbard Park [Des Moines] and on Jan. 21 at Gilman Terrace [Sioux City], sponsored by the Jr. Chamber of Commerce and the Recreation Department. Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/89715174/.

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    Black-and-white photo: six Black men outside of what seems to be an eatery of some kind in New York City. Four are wearing glasses. Two are wearing light-colored suits, i.e., their work uniforms, with white smocks tied around their waists. Three of the others have suits of other colors, and hats typical of American men in 1940s movies. One portly man has on a grid-patterned shirt, long sleeves and collar. One of the two workers is seated on a wooden crate turned upright. Next to him is a portable radio (maybe 18 inches wide by 12 inches tall and 8 inches deep). He's got one hand on the radio and is pointing at it with the other. Two other men are pointing at it. All are leaning in, engaged with the program, some smiling and perhaps about to speak.

    The caption reads, “Residents listening to radio outside storefront, circa late 1940s.” There are some signs and goods visible, but they’re too small to make out. The uniforms with white smocks of two of the men suggest food.

    Source: Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Photographs and Prints Division (Street Scenes, Harlem, 1940s), New York Public Library Digital Collections, image ID 1800852.

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    I watched “Passage to Marseille,” dir. Michael Curtiz (Warner Bros., 1944), this evening.

    I forgot about the shocking scene in which Humphrey Bogart’s character machine-guns the surviving crew of the German plane he’d just downed at sea. The audience in 1944 was meant to sympathize with this act. After all, that crew had just tried to bomb the small civilian freighter. I don’t know if such a scene would have worked in a Hollywood film much earlier, but it did in 1944. Was this fictional atrocity an indication of American popular culture’s brutalization in World War II?

    Black and white image of movie release poster, landscape orientation, shows heads of all the movies' stars.

    Movie poster image source: “Warner Bros. Pressbook” (1944), Internet Archive.

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    Two Aerial Photographs, ca. 1918

    Zeppelin-like rigid airship in the distance, as seen from an airplane, a typically European patchwork of fields below, and a few farm buildings.

    Two biplanes in sky as seen from another airplane, one on right closer with pilot's head visible, as well as the circular blur of the propeller, one much smaller, top left. No markings on the closer plane evident, perhaps because of the lighting.

    "Taken from an Aeroplane" (top) and "The Scouts" (bottom) by A. L. Hitchin, ca. 1918–19.

    Source: The American Annual of Photography 1920 (New York, 1919), pp. 111 and 183, Internet Archive (bound and scanned with 1919 edition).

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    U.S. Government Caricature of Nazi Propaganda

    This 1942 poster was designed to counter the effects of Nazi propaganda in the United States. It is fascinating in its own right, but parts of the text reveal startling similarities to Russian disinformation in our own time.

    Follow the link below this poster for a description and full transcription.

    Accessibility: Description and full transcription of poster.

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    Europe's Changing Map in 1939 (Photo)

    Black and white photo: Young, dark-haired, white woman in short-sleeved dress, squatting, knees together, left hand in lap, right elbow on knee with right hand on cheek. She is looking at a giant map on the floor, which she is standing on.

    European situation spoils map on Post Office department floor. Washington, D.C., April 12. The huge map on the floor of the Post Office Department here is all out of kilter these days due to the aggression in Europe. Many are the embarrassing questions being asked officials about when Mr. Farley is going to do something about Ethiopia, Austria and Czechoslovakia. The answer so far has been - nothing. Probably the Post Office is waiting to see what will happen next on the continent. Miss Edna Strain is inspecting the damage done by the ambitious dictators. 4-12-39

    Image and caption: Harris & Ewing Collection, Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2016875385/.

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    Shopping in Northern Virginia: Photos from 1967, 1971, and 1976

    Black-and-white photo: shoppers on escalators in the Hecht Company department store at the Parkington shopping mall, Arlington, Virginia, 1967. Very crowded.

    Hecht Company department store at the Parkington shopping mall, Arlington, Virginia, on November 20, 1967.

    Black-and-white photo: women shopping for clothes at Hecht Company Department store, Tysons Corner shopping mall, Fairfax, Virginia, 1971. There's a sign with a big hand pointing down labeled 'Hot Spot'.

    Hecht Company Department store, Tysons Corner shopping mall, Fairfax, Virginia, on April 22, 1971.

    Black-and-white photo: people walking in a parking lot outside of Woodward & Lothrop department store, Tysons Corner Mall, Tysons Corner, Virginia, 1976

    Tysons Corner Mall, Tysons Corner, Virginia, on April 12, 1976.

    Source: Library of Congress, U.S. News & World Report Magazine Photograph Collection, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2024640738, …/2011646503, and …/2024630362.

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