Picture This: Photographs As Primary Documents in the Social Studies Classroom
Published in the Summer 2007 issue of the ACEI Exchange, pp 224 G-I
This Idea-Sparker was submitted by James A. Bryant, Jr., Associate Professor in Social Studies, Appalachian State University.

My grandmother was standing at the fireplace in my home, admiring the family photographs on the mantel, when she came to one that she found to be particularly resonant. The photograph was of her at age 14, standing on the porch of the boarding house in which she lived. The boarding house was located near the Park Yarn cotton mill in Bessemer City, North Carolina. She was standing between her future father-in-law and sister-in-law (although, of course, she did not know this at the time the photograph was taken). As she stared at the photo, her memories became naturally flowing stories. She told how my great-grandfather Bryant had loved to play his banjo and sing on that porch. She told how her family would buy ice for 25 cents from the ice man who came by daily, and of the neighbor who would neurotically patrol the boarding house, watching as the water dripped through the floorboards from the melting ice and muttering to herself, "Wasted money . . . wasted money." She pointed to the skirt that she was wearing in the picture and told me that it had been made by her cousin Kathleen. Later that same summer, Kathleen would succumb to tuberculosis. And then she told me my favorite story, about how my grandfather had sat with her on a swing on that very porch the night before he left to fight in World War II. Clutching his guitar, my grandfather had sung Bill Monroe's "Kentucky Waltz" to her and promised to come home safely.

I sat in wonderment as these stories and more were inspired by this single picture, and I wondered how many more stories like that were tucked away in the grainy, yellowed pictures in photograph albums across the world. More important, I wondered how many of those stories were never told. I also thought about the current emphasis on the study and use of primary source documents in social studies classrooms, and wondered why I had been so oblivious to the power of the printed image, and not merely the printed word.

The result of this musing was to challenge my preservice teachers to develop and teach lesson plans based on a photograph from their own family record. The National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) standards state that, "Human beings seek to understand their historical roots and to locate themselves in time" (www.socialstudies.org/standards/strands/, retrieved August 1, 2006). With this in mind, I asked my students to research the history of a family photograph by interviewing family members. They were then expected to collect this oral history by compiling it in a narrative account of the picture. As family members' recollections are often fuzzy, however, each student also was required to date the photograph as accurately as possible and then research the time period, locale, and circumstances of the photo so that it might be placed in a broader historical context.

In the second half of this assignment, my preservice teachers developed a lesson plan based on the photograph they had chosen and taught this lesson in a classroom. One of the critical components of the lessons for me would be that, in addition to required research, the students would be asked to employ their imaginations. Through the use of the photograph, I hoped that my preservice teachers would develop a lesson plan that would allow their own students to "get to know" the figures of the past, to feel for them, and to have an understanding of their existence as more than a clinical exercise of memorizing certain facts.

This is exactly what Jonathon Putnam, a junior preservice teacher in my class at Appalachian State University (ASU), did. Jonathon even listed "will develop a sense of historical empathy" as one of his pedagogical objectives in his lesson plan. Jonathon provided his class with the family photograph pictured above.

This photograph is of Jonathon's grandmother, taken during the Great Depression in Gaston County, North Carolina. Jonathon described his grandmother as "a lady of strong will, knowledge, hard work, heartache, and faith." Jonathon developed a lesson plan around this photograph, seeking to evoke such emotional imagery from his students. The lesson dealt with the stock market crash of 1929. His lesson began with a quote from photographer and author Gordon Parks concerning the panic that occurred as a result of the crash. Jonathon then asked his students to write in their journals about a time when they had felt panicked about or by something. He then asked them to explain what it felt like and what they did to confront the panic.

After a discussion and some guided reading about the Depression, Jonathon handed out copies of his grandmother's picture. For the culminating assignment, he asked his students to imagine that they were this person and that they were alive in 1929. They were then given a choice of creative writing assignments. They could write a journal entry taking the role of the woman pictured in the photograph, telling what it was like to live during this period, or they could compose a letter to then-President Herbert Hoover (again, as Jonathon’s grandmother), letting him know how much she was struggling and suggesting ways to alleviate the suffering.

Josh Church, also a junior at ASU, used the picture at right to teach his students about what life was like on a North Carolina tobacco farm in the early 20th century. The picture shows Josh's great-grandparents and was taken in front of their farmhouse in 1919. Josh developed an interdisciplinary lesson plan that focused on both history and technology. Josh wanted his students to come away with "a clear and concise perspective of domestic life in the United States during the early 20th century" as well as the importance of "social, intellectual, and technological changes and how they have shaped America's population as a whole in the past 80 years."

Josh opened the lesson by projecting the photograph onto a screen in his class. He then asked his students to write a paragraph about the family, having them imagine what they were like and what their lives were like. After the students had shared their imagined biographies, Josh told them the story that had been passed down through several generations of his family. He focused on the primary source of heating the farmhouse in 1919-a woodstove, which he contrasted with more modern conveniences. He then informed his class that the smallest child in the picture was a twin; the other child had perished in a fire caused by the family's woodstove. Josh also used this time to talk about community helpers, such as police, firefighters, and rescue medical workers, who, unfortunately, were not available to his family in 1919.

In closing, Josh again projected the photograph on the screen in his class and had his students take a fresh look at the faces. Armed with their new knowledge, Josh sent the students to the Internet and the library to conduct more research on rural North Carolina in the early 20th century. The students then were assigned to write a letter from Walter or Barney "to a relative explaining the events that happened shortly before the picture was taken" and explaining what rural life was like in 1919.

The faces that look out at us from photographs of the past are not merely reminders of different times and places. If used imaginatively in the classroom, those old pictures also hold the promise of becoming a gateway for our students. With a powerful combination of creativity and scholarship, using photographs as primary documents-as my two students did in their classrooms—allows teachers and students alike to approach historical inquiry from a fresh perspective. Jonathon hoped that his students would develop a sense of "historical empathy." That is an important pedagogical and developmental objective for social studies teachers, and family photograph albums are a great way to reach for and accomplish this goal.

Special thanks to Jonathon Putnam and Josh Church for their hard work and permission to share their family photographs and their lesson plans and, of course, to my Grandmother Bryant.
James A. Bryant, Jr.