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History as Image: Changing the Lens

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Joan N. Burstyn
Joan N. Burstyn*
Affiliation:
Syracuse University
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Extract

History is constructed reality; yet, as historians we often select material and shape our interpretations without self-analysis. We assume that because we were educated to be objective, we undertake our research, analysis, and interpretation in an objective manner. We rarely question why we have chosen a particular issue to investigate or how far our understanding of the body politic existing in our own day colors our interpretation of institutions and events in the past. Once we have established ourselves in our field, how often do we change our perspectives, or even our focus? How often do we incorporate new ideas, or new perspectives, into our interpretations of the past? Only occasionally, I believe. Sometimes, though, when we read ideas that differ radically from our own, we may begin to interpret our own research data using a different lens or a different focus. Sometimes, we may begin to search for new material in order to investigate an issue, using perhaps a telephoto lens to probe into it more deeply than we had originally intended. And sometimes, we may even change our topic of investigation, swinging our camera to capture a fresh aspect of reality.

Type
Articles
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 27 , Issue 2 , Summer 1987 , pp. 167 - 180
Copyright
Copyright © 1987 by the History of Education Society 

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References

1. See Grill, Tom and Scanlon, Mark, Photographic Composition (New York, 1983), 13–14. Grill and Scanlon believe that a strong composition requires that the photographer detach him or herself from the scene in order to construct the photograph from the scene's individual components, working much as a painter does but under a very different time constraint. “In essence, composition is control.”Google Scholar

2. Koner, Marvin, “The Photographer's Changing Vision,” in Photographic Communication: Principles, Problems, and Challenges of Photojournalism, ed. Smith Schuneman, R. (New York, 1972), 62. His brief essay (pp. 59–64) is most insightful.Google Scholar

3. Ibid. Google Scholar

4. Franzosa, Susan Douglas and Mazza, Karen A., comps., Integrating Women's Studies into the Curriculum: An Annotated Bibliography (Westport, Conn., 1984), xiv.Google Scholar

5. Franzosa and Mazza refer to Bernstein, Basil B., Class, Codes, and Control (London, 1975), vol. 3, Towards a Theory of Educational Transmissions; and to Young, Michael F. D., ed., Knowledge and Control: New Directions for the Sociology of Education (London, 1971). The more succinct, and to my mind clearer, statement by Bernstein of his ideas on class, coding, and controls may be found in Knowledge and Control, ch. 2. However, on page 85 of Towards a Theory, Bernstein refers to the curriculum as designating what knowledge is considered valid in schools, to pedagogy as designating what counts as valid ways to transmit knowledge, and to evaluation as designating what counts as a valid realization of their knowledge on the part of those who have been taught. (In a very different context, Ivan Illich pointed out that once formal classes were offered in a particular subject, people who acquired similar knowledge on their own felt, and were made to feel by others, ignorant of the subject, however much they had learned on their own.) Franzosa's and Mazza's five categories are an elaboration and a generalization from the complex arguments Bernstein uses to explain the relationships among class, codes, and control.Google Scholar

6. In 1984, Gayle Samuels, under the auspices of the Mendham Free Public Library, suggested to some writers that a reference volume on New Jersey women would be a useful resource. They and several scholars met together to work on the project that initially was called the New Jersey Women's Project, but which in July 1985 became incorporated as The Women's Project of New Jersey, Inc. As director of the Women's Studies Program for the New Brunswick campuses of Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, I was involved with the project from its early days. The book is being edited by a team, including as well as me three associate editors, Delight Dodyk of Drew University, Carmela Karnoutsos of Jersey City State College, and Carolyn DeSwarte Gifford, until recently of the Methodist Archives at Drew University; one copy editor, Irene Rich; one bibliographic editor, Patricia Butcher; and two managing editors, Gayle Samuels and Caroline Jacobus. As president and secretary, respectively, of the Women's Project of New Jersey, Inc., Samuels and Jacobus are also responsible for general management of the traveling exhibit and the primary school workbook which are described later in the paper.Google Scholar

7. “History in the Making: A Chronology of the Women's Project of New Jersey,” 27 Nov. 1984, p. 4. Minutes of the meetings of the Board of Trustees of the Women's Project of New Jersey, Inc., and of the editorial board for the reference volume are held by the project secretary, Caroline Jacobus, and are the private property of the project. In fall 1985, Gayle Samuels prepared a short synopsis of the minutes, referred to above. This reference and several later ones are to that document. The date implies that further details may be found in the minutes of that day's meeting.Google Scholar

8. See James, Edward T., ed., Notable American Women, 1607–1950: A Biographical Dictionary, 3 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1971); and Sicherman, Barbara and Green, Carol Hurd, eds., Notable American Women: The Modern Period: A Biographical Dictionary (Cambridge, Mass., 1980).Google Scholar

9. In her written testimony in the case of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Sears, Roebuck and Co., Alice Kessler-Harris referred to men and women working together in the nineteenth century as tavern keepers and brewmasters. Signs 11 (Summer 1986): 769; for the Women's Project of New Jersey, Betty Olson has identified a similar pattern in the life of tavern keeper Catharine Anderson 1749–1806(?).Google Scholar

10. See “History in the Making,” 3 Jan. 1985, 5.Google Scholar

11. See Irwin, Inez Haynes, The Story of Alice Paul and the National Woman's Party (Fairfax, Va., 1964), v.Google Scholar

12. Franzosa, and Mazza, , Integrating Women's Studies, xii.Google Scholar

13. See Horowitz, Helen Lefkowitz, Alma Mater: Design and Experience in the Women's Colleges from Their Nineteenth-Century Beginnings to the 1930s (New York, 1984), 20–25.Google Scholar

14. See ibid., 26–27; Green, Elizabeth Alden, Mary Lyon and Mount Holyoke: Opening the Gates (Hanover, N.H., 1979), ch. 5; and Burstyn's, Joan N. review of Green's book in Paedagogica Historica 20 (June 1980): 286–90.Google Scholar

15. See Urban, Wayne J., “The Educational Historian as Advocate: Horace Mann Bond and the Brown Decision” (Paper delivered at the annual meeting of the History of Education Society, Palo Alto, Calif., 1986). The reference to Kelly's 1961 paper to the American Historical Association is on pages 20–21.Google Scholar

16. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 11 (Summer 1986): 751–79 contains Rosalind Rosenberg's and Alice Kessler-Harris's written testimony in the case of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Sears, Roebuck and Co., together with an introduction by Sandi E. Cooper and a preface written for the board of associate editors of Signs by Jacquelyn Dowd Hall. A more extensive examination of the impact of the case on historians may be found in Milkman, Ruth, “Women's History and the Sears Case,” Feminist Studies 12 (Summer 1986): 375–400. For an example of media coverage see Wiener, Jon, “The Sears Case: Women's History on Trial,” The Nation, 7 Sept. 1985, 161, 176–80.Google Scholar

17. Hall, , Signs 11: 751.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18. See “History in the Making,” 3 Jan. 1985, 6.Google Scholar

19. See “History in the Making,” 22 May 1985, 10.Google Scholar

20. Ibid. Google Scholar

21. See “History in the Making,” 28 May 1985, 11.Google Scholar

22. See Minutes of the Regular Meeting of the Trustees of the Women's Project of New Jersey, Inc., 12 May 1986, 2.Google Scholar

23. See “New Jersey Women's History Panel Presentations,” 6pp. Presentations were held in 1986 at Lambert Castle, Paterson; Trenton State College; Mercer County Community College; Hunterdon Central School, Flemington; Teaneck Public Library; Bernards Township Public Library, Basking Ridge; Calvary Episcopal Church, Summit; Resorts Hotel, Atlantic City; New Jersey Historical Society, Newark; Montclair Public Library; and the New Jersey Medical School, Newark. A twelfth session was given at a conference of directors and counselors of vocational education.Google Scholar