HIST 120: American History Survey/Fall 2006

Photo Album Guidelines: 1950s Topics

Here are some topics and ideas for your 1950s photo essay. NO ONE CAN DO ELVIS PRESLEY. PERIOD. (Otherwise, I'll have more Elvis than I can take.) One of the most successful photo albums that I've recevied used resources from home. This student's grand parents had emigrated to the US in 1940s. She scanned family photographs and juxtaposed them with historical photos from the 1950s and discussed how closely her parent's childhood mirrored American culture in the 1950s. Once again, be aware that doing a good job on this assignment will take some time, so plan and begin early. Several of the topics overlap, so you may discover yourself combining topics. For example, selecting HUAC may lead you to Senator Joseph McCarthy or to the Hollywood blacklist. If you are unsure of the particulars, consult the guidelines for the Civil War photo essay.

1. Jack Kerouac
2. Dwight D. Eisenhower
3. Kitchen Debate: Nixon vs. Khrushchev
4. Sputnik
5. Rebel Without a Cause
6. Brown v Board of Education
7. John Foster Dulles
8. Senator Joseph McCarthy
9. Korean War
10. Levittown
11. The Wild One
12. Operation Wetback
13. Douglas MacArthur
14. HUAC
15. Alger Hiss
16. Julius & Ethel Rosenberg
17. Marshall Plan
18. Andrea Doria
19. Montgomery Bus Boycott
20. James Dean
21. Native American Tribal Termination
22. I Love Lucy
23. $64,000 Question
24. Twenty One
25. hula hoop/Wham-O
26. Buddy Holly
27. Bobby Darin
28. advertising in the 1950s
29. Marilyn Monroe
30. US Steel Strike
31. Peyton Place
32. cars of the 1950s
33. Cuban Revolution
34. bomb shelters
35. Jackson Pollack
36. Barbie                                                             

Some sites that may help get you started:

1. The Literature and Culture of the American 1950s
2. Fifties Web
3. American Cultural History

1. Photo Album Guidelines: Selecting a Topic

Photo essays are not simply random collections of photographs on a particular but a narrative in which the images are critical elements to the essay’s success. Here are some guidelines that will help you construct a good essay. Be aware that this assignment will require time and a bit of research effort. Some topics will require some real digging and imagination. The opportunity for bonus points on this assignment is great.

I. First, decide on a topic. Try to select a topic that is not one of the “usual suspects,” although persons and events are still acceptable, and one that you can deal with in six to eight images. Although there are literally hundreds of possibilities, here are some suggestions:

1. The Civil War in Florida
2. One of the lesser-known military engagements (not Antietam, Gettysburg, Shiloh, Chancellorsville, or any battle mentioned in our textbook. You might want to try something on the order of the Battle of Helena or some other smaller engagement. See exception below.)
3. Battle of Antietam (if you do your own photography)
4. Battle of Manassas Ist or 2nd (if you do your own photography)
5. Battle of Chantilly (if you do your own photography)
6. Alan Pinkerton
7. Architecture of slave houses
8. Medicine during the Civil War
9. Matthew Brady (Civil War photographer)
10. Visual coverage of the war in Harper’s Weekly
11. Civil War in dime novels
12. Clara Barton (nursing pioneer)
13. Elizabeth Baker (Pinkerton operative)
14. Rose O'Neal Greenhow (Confederate spy)
15. Tredegar Iron Works
16. 20th Maine Regiment (defender at Little Round Top, Gettysburg)
17. John Mosby
18. Ft. Pillow
19. Minnesota Sioux Uprising
20. Mary Chestnut (plantation belle)
21. John Bell Hood (Confederate general)
22. Museum of the Confederacy
23. Dred Scott Decision
24. Confederate Civil War maps
25. Confederate Photographs
26. Civil War Navies
27. Civil War nursing
28. Money during the Civil War
29. Winslow Home (as Civil War artist)
30. Col. Elmer Ellsworth (first Civil War casualty)
31. African American soldiers
32. Hispanic soldiers
33. Christian A. Fleetwood (first African American Congressional Medal of Honor winner)
34. Andersonville Prison
35. Lincoln Assassination (a subtopic preferably)
36. Uncle Tom’s Cabin
37. Civil War monuments
38. Slavery (Choose a subtopic; doing slavery in six to eight images is virtually impossible.)
39. 54th Regiment of Massachusetts (African American regiment used as the basis for the movie, Glory)
40. Alfred Waud (battlefield artist-Union)
41. Frank Vizetelly (battlefield artist-Confederacy)

2. Photo Album Guidelines: Finding Images

Second, use the Internet and Google to find images related to your topic. Remember: you need not confine yourself to photographs; maps, pictures of documents, engravings and so forth are fair game. Even a contemporary photograph is acceptable as long as it’s pertinent to your topic. Use images that conform to fair use guidelines. DO NOT simply snatch an image off a site. Use sites that allow fair or educational use, such as American Memory at the Library of Congress and the National Archives.

Use websites as resources for your images—not for your prose. In other words, do not copy your prose from them. If you wish to use them as source, cast your post in your own words and provide a citation for the idea. If you quote directly from a document or website, you must use quotation marks and provide a citation. Do not take more than two images from a single site (the exceptions are American Memory and the National Archives) and furnish a source for the ones that you use in your photo essay. Download and save your images to your computer. You can find examples of a photo album and citations within a photo album at:

Antietam: Stalemate: A Sample Photo Essay

When you are looking for images, find those that are equal to or greater than 500px (width) x 400px (height). Good sources for information and images are the following.

Library of Congress: American Memory
Civil War Sites Advisory Commission
American Civil War Homepage
CivilWar@Smithsonian
US Civil War Homepage: Slavery
The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas: A Visual Record
National Archives
Civil War Art

3. Photo Album Guidelines: Introduction & Captioning

Write the introduction for your photo essay and the captions for the individual images.

The introduction for your photo essay takes the same form and content as the introductions for your blog posts. Your intro paragraph should get the reader interested and contain the thesis. The thesis should be bolded our underlined in the same manner as you would a regular post. Your introduction and thesis should be around 124–150 words.

Captioning images is a different kind of task. The goal is to use the images to show or illustrate part of your essay. To that end, the caption should provide some context for the image as well as point out to the reader something that the reader might miss on casual viewing. For example, in image #6 in the sample photo essay, I might begin by noting that President Lincoln paid a visited Gen. McClelland’s encampment a visit in October shortly after the Battle of Antietam. I might also point out that the American flag is used as a kind of table covering—a use of the flag that might strike the contemporary viewer as strange. Similarly, I might indicate that the Confederate flag, the Stars and Bars, appears to have been tossed on the ground. Finally, I might say something about the fact that the Gen. McClelland’s bed is also in the picture. All of this suggests that the photo illustrated a “working” military encampment; there was no effort to “dress up” for President Lincoln’s visit. Captions should be around 100 words. You can find a sample caption and citation at Antietam: Stalemate: A Sample Photo Essay.

4. Photo Album Guidelines: Preparing Images

Although you can simply put images into a TypePad photo album, it is preferable to crop or resize your images before putting them in your album. This process can eliminate some of the flaws in the images and provide a focus for your viewer. To do so requires an image editing program. Photoshop Elements is available across campus, and you may well have an image editing program on your home computer. If you unfamiliar with cropping an image, use the help facility. Photoshop Elements has excellent online help. The keys to making this process easy are: 1) Choose Preference > Unit & Rulers > Ruler > Pixels; 2) If you want to specify the size or resolution of the crop, enter 500 and 400 in the Width, Height, or Resolution text boxes in the options bar; and 3) Save your image as a jpeg, remembering to give it a meaningful name.

You may have to make your image a bit larger. (If you have to make your image much larger, find another image.) Choose image size and change ONE of the values. (Be sure that your Units & Rulers preference is set to pixels.) If, for example, your image is in landscape mode (wider than it is tall) type in 500 in width; if it is in portrait mode (taller than it is wide), type in 400 in height.

5. Photo Album Guidelines: Create Your Photo Essay

Ok, now you’re ready to put your photo album together on TypePad. For general Photo Album directions, Typepad has a good help area. Log on to your account and click Help and then click “Your Photo Albums.” Unfortunately, there are a few things to be aware of.

1. When you Create your photo album, be sure that you title your photo album folder something on the order of civil_war. We will be doing another photo album, and you want to keep the images for each one separate.

2. When you select your Layout, use the third option; it is the only one that has an introduction option. For the interior pages, the choice is yours.
3. When you select your Content, be sure that the following are checked: under Photo Album Cover Page: Photo Album Description and Album Cover Image and under Your Photo Pages: Photo Album Title, Photo Title, Photo Caption, and Location. (We’ll use Location for our image credits.)
4. When you select Style, you can make your own choice. (Perhaps Midnight isn’t the best since you’ll be using a great deal of text, but it’s up to you.)
5. When you select Configure, give your album a title and write or copy/paste your introduction. To underline or bold in TypePad’s Photo Album, however, you may have to use a bit of HTML code. This is very straightforward and easy.

   To bold your thesis sentence:

   1. Write your thesis.
   2. Put the following tag at the beginning of your thesis: <strong>
   3. Put the following tag at the end of your thesis: </strong>
   4. The thesis should look like this: <strong>This is the thesis. </strong>

To underline your thesis sentence:

1. Write your thesis.
2. Put the following tag at the beginning of your thesis: <u>
3. Put the following tag at the end of your thesis: </u>
4. The thesis should look like this: <u>This is the thesis.</u>

There are still several more steps in configure that need attention.

1. Still in Configure, choose the image for your cover and make the album public. Under Thumbnail size, medium is probably the best choice, but you’re free to do otherwise. Be sure that you choose the following: Display Order: Title Ascending and Photo Size: Medium (500 px)
2. Still in Configure, be sure that the following are checked: Photo Title, Photo Caption, and Location. That’s it. You’re good to go.

6. Photo Album Guidelines: Image Order

When you Edit a Photo Record in TypePad, number them either numerically or alphabetically. This will force TypePad to put the images in the order that you wish. Otherwise, TypePad will use its own ordering, and your photo essay will make no sense. Finally, be sure to put in a location for your image. This should be the name of the site from which you obtained your image. Essentially, you’ll be using “location” as a place to put your photo credit.