How to read the record behind an old photograph

In a photograph of a queue outside a building, you can see people standing in line. What are they waiting for? When did this happen? A photograph records a view at a moment. Other records can help identify the place, the people and the event.

Write down what you can see

The U.S. National Archives’ photograph worksheet starts with observation before asking about the maker, date, place and purpose. Try this with an old photo you have seen online. Write one line describing the visible scene. In a separate line, list details supplied by a caption. Then mark the questions you would need another source to answer.

A Library of Congress classroom exercise uses a Lewis Hine photograph in this way. Students inspect the picture and form questions, then read the bibliographic record and identify which questions it answers. The record can provide details that were invisible in the frame. The unanswered questions can guide the next search.

Follow one image into its collection

The Library of Congress identifies the image known as Migrant Mother as one of a series Dorothea Lange made of Florence Owens Thompson and her children in Nipomo, California, in March 1936. Lange was photographing migratory farm labour for what was then the Resettlement Administration. The collection guide brings the photographs and that assignment together.

Looking across the series lets you see how the framing varies. It also raises a question about order. The Library explains that the negative numbers were assigned later, so those numbers cannot establish which exposure came first. It says it has found no extended captions or supplementary files for the series in the Farm Security Administration’s written records. That is a description of the records examined.

Keep the different sources attached to their claims

A title may repeat a caption recorded when the image was catalogued. A collection note may add an identification based on later work. A curator may flag a date as approximate. Carry those distinctions into your own description so readers can tell which part comes from which source.

For the fictional queue, an original caption might identify an event and another view might reveal what lies beyond the edge of the frame. A contemporary newspaper could record why people gathered. Use the photographer, collection and item identifier to find the record again. The combination makes for a more precise description than a caption copied on its own.