Invisible People (past and present)
Over on FB, my friend lisa_marli shared this: http://everydayfeminism.com/2016/03/young-black-and-victorian/ - for which many thanks (please do head over there and have a look).
As I noted on FB, I wasn't happy with the title "These Gorgeous Photos of Victorian Women of Color Will Change Your View of History". And the premis that some people don't know that there were Black people in 19th century North America. Sure, there are people who don't know that. But are they likely to click?
More likely are people who knew about slavery, but who have not seen (many) images of Black women of this period and/or only images of enslaved women, or women in dire poverty.
Looking at these pictures, I realised how little I know about the history of women's fashion in the 19th century - and particularly, in California. I'd have liked to read more about the hair styles and clothes these women were wearing. About the hair-dressers and dress-makers. About women like the sitters, in terms of age/date of photo, class, etc. (sadly the images are mostly divorced from such infomation - while preserving the images is laudable, criticism for institutional loss of the metadata is called for).
But returing to the them of 'people who don't know': I've thought about this some more. One of the most profound conferences I have been to in "ahem" years of being a heritage professional was a conference of people with learning disabilities. I think I'd been encouraged to go because I was at the time very interested in the use of Makaton in museum interpretation (https://www.makaton.org/, if you are interested - and yes, we did use it in an easy-read guide to Buckinghamshire County Museum). The people with learning disabilities presented as part of the conference the results of some research into their top ten information needs. They included 'access to information about my health', 'access to information about housing', 'access to information about my rights' and things which you'ld expect in the top 10 of anyone's information needs. But I was awed that among these was 'Access to Black history'. The man who presented this said something like "I want to find out why people like me are here".
As heritage professionals, we let people down if we don't think enough about those who don't know. If we assume that ignorance comes from wilful neglect. Particularly we should think of those who are struggling to access crucial information about health, training opportunities, benefits and so on, but give a high priority to Black history. So much as I'd like to know about the hairstyles in these photos, I'll take a step back - first, those who prioritise "I want to find out why people like me are here" over information I take for granted is a click away.
As I noted on FB, I wasn't happy with the title "These Gorgeous Photos of Victorian Women of Color Will Change Your View of History". And the premis that some people don't know that there were Black people in 19th century North America. Sure, there are people who don't know that. But are they likely to click?
More likely are people who knew about slavery, but who have not seen (many) images of Black women of this period and/or only images of enslaved women, or women in dire poverty.
Looking at these pictures, I realised how little I know about the history of women's fashion in the 19th century - and particularly, in California. I'd have liked to read more about the hair styles and clothes these women were wearing. About the hair-dressers and dress-makers. About women like the sitters, in terms of age/date of photo, class, etc. (sadly the images are mostly divorced from such infomation - while preserving the images is laudable, criticism for institutional loss of the metadata is called for).
But returing to the them of 'people who don't know': I've thought about this some more. One of the most profound conferences I have been to in "ahem" years of being a heritage professional was a conference of people with learning disabilities. I think I'd been encouraged to go because I was at the time very interested in the use of Makaton in museum interpretation (https://www.makaton.org/, if you are interested - and yes, we did use it in an easy-read guide to Buckinghamshire County Museum). The people with learning disabilities presented as part of the conference the results of some research into their top ten information needs. They included 'access to information about my health', 'access to information about housing', 'access to information about my rights' and things which you'ld expect in the top 10 of anyone's information needs. But I was awed that among these was 'Access to Black history'. The man who presented this said something like "I want to find out why people like me are here".
As heritage professionals, we let people down if we don't think enough about those who don't know. If we assume that ignorance comes from wilful neglect. Particularly we should think of those who are struggling to access crucial information about health, training opportunities, benefits and so on, but give a high priority to Black history. So much as I'd like to know about the hairstyles in these photos, I'll take a step back - first, those who prioritise "I want to find out why people like me are here" over information I take for granted is a click away.