Author's Statement
As this is the first writing project of this class and also my first project writing about analyzing a documentary photograph, I feel that I had some difficulties to overcome in preparing this piece. Our in-class work looking at other photographs and talking about them using language from the book and learning what exactly we were trying to do was very helpful. I feel that most of my issues stemmed from not understanding right away that we are not looking for something the photographer is trying to do and we are not looking for what its general meaning to the world is. Once I eventually grasped that we are looking for what the argument of the photograph is as it presents itself and just that, a photograph, analyzing the key technical elements that achieved the argument that I had already began to figure out became easier.
In my revisions, I wanted to figure out how to best arrange my points in the most logical manner that had the best flow. This included figuring out what points that I was making were the most important and also what would be the best understood after explaining others either before or afterwards.
In the introduction, I realized that some of my sentences were not in a very logical manner and tried to move from a general to a more specific information guideline when writing about the historical background of the photo. For example, I moved “The promise of a better life in America convinced many Europeans to emigrate from their dismal situations in their home countries” and “These groups moved to America for similar reasons that were tied to politics and economics” more to the beginning of the paragraph as so they would best follow the beginning sentence and then begin to introduce the two main groups of people and sharing their specific story by moving “Two major groups that were a part of this movement were emigrants from Italy and from Poland” after the two previous sentences.
I also changed the description of the photo and did not include anything about how they would be important for the argument, simply a brief description of the logistics of the photo. After that, I changed my thesis statement in order to match the new order of my points that I wanted to go in. Instead of arranging my points the first way in which I discussed the girl in the center of the photo first, I instead discussed the coloration of the photo because of its most importance. I re arranged the paragraphs so that they flowed in a more logical manner in the way that I went from coloration as the most important in general, the coloration of the signs, a paragraph about the coloration of the girl’s outfit and then her importance at the center, and then I ended the body with a paragraph about vectors of attention and how that related to my second point in the intro, that the photo depicts “the prospect of a promising future in the United States.”
I also changed a few small wording differences. For example, I tried to switch the word ‘like’ for ‘such as’ when giving examples of what I was saying. Other word choice changes were also made in order to sound more professional.
Writing Project 1
During the early twentieth century, the United States opened its arms to immigrants from all over the world. The promise of a better life in America convinced many Europeans to emigrate from their dismal situations in their home countries. These groups moved to America for similar reasons that were tied to politics and economics. Two major groups that were a part of this movement were emigrants from Italy and from Poland. After the reunification of Italy, the country was still left in poverty and opposing groups spread violence throughout the cities. Italians from all regions of Italy left the country with hopes for establishing a better life. Similarly, the people of Poland suffered from economic hardship, but they also suffered politically from the Soviet and German invasions. As with other Europeans, America’s promise for a better life rang in the ears of the battered Polish.
Upon arriving in the United States, immigrants were quick to set up their place in the new country, especially in the east coast because that was the most common arrival point for immigrant transportation. Neighborhoods that soon filled up with certain groups of people became known as “Little Italy” or “Little Poland” and such. Many immigrants worked as laborers in the many job forces that needed workers, or set up shops in big cities such as New York and other coastal cities. Along with setting up their economic role in society, the Italians and Polish also wanted to establish a cultural role in the United States; in a sense becoming American while still retaining their heritage and customs. The most important group that was affected by this was the children who were either very young when they came to the United States or who were born in the U.S. The children had to find a way to balance their inherited culture with the one that was presented to them in their daily lives. Most of these children attended American schools and learned English from an early age but spoke their mother language at home. Groups of differing ethnicities and backgrounds were also often intermingled in the cities in the schools because of their similar need to learn the language and the culture of the country they were growing up in.
One photographer, Fenno Jacobs, captured these aspects of immigrant life in America in the photo “Beecher Street School, whose student body consists of half Americans of Italian descent and half of Americans of Polish descent, Southington Connecticut. The Queen of the May was Emily Schwak, of Polish extraction; the King, Philip D’Agostino, of Italian.” The photo was taken in May of 1942, a time of great importance to the United States as a country and of a great deal of immigration to the country. The U.S. had been directly involved in World War II for a little over half a year after declaring war on Japan while poor conditions in European countries caused people to emigrate from their homeland to the United States, such as the Polish and Italians. The photograph shows Italian and Polish students attending a May Day festival. Some of the children are dressed in normal outfits and are holding signs with writing and pictures on them, and the girl in the center is sitting in a chair separated from the others and wearing a patriotic outfit. The photo demonstrates the assimilation of immigrant children into American culture in the 1940s and the prospect of a promising future in the United States. The photo uses pathos through logos in order to depict this. This is observed in the technical aspects of the aspects of coloration of brightness and saturation, focus on and framing of the girl in the center, and through vectors of attention.
The most important technical element of the photograph is the aspect of coloration because of the attention brought to the signs and outfit of the girl in the front. Overall, there are a broad range of hues in the photo in the children’s clothing, the signs, and the sky and ground. Many of these hues are also bright. These are the ones that stand out the most in contrast to the ones next to them such as the reds, whites, and blues that are, again, the patriotic colors of the U.S. These are present in the outfit of not only the girl in the foreground but also in the clothing of some of the other children. Also, the colors of the signs that bring attention to them are also fairly bright. These contrast to the darker shadows of the photograph around the areas of the children’s feet and the upper right-hand corner that has trees in the background. The most important aspect of the coloration is the saturation of certain colors that brings direct attention to them. This is most obvious in the signs that the girls are holding. One of the signs is for ‘breakfast’ and ‘lunch’ and is possibly and advertisement for something the school has. Even more so, the sign that is advertising Victory Gardens is the most noticeable due to the high saturation and brightness of the blues and yellows in the sign. This is significant due to the meaning of the sign. During WWII, the United States’ government asked its citizens to help the country out by growing Victory Gardens. The food from these gardens fed the communities so that the government could ration more food for the soldiers that were fighting overseas. These students, who are again of Italian or Polish descent, are holding up signs to advocate a very patriotic message, and this is a sign of their assimilation into the American culture.
Upon looking at the photo, the first person that is the most and first noticeable is the girl in the center. The most important aspect of her being the focus of the photo is the outfit that she is wearing. Everything is colored with blue, red, and white which are the well-known colors that together represent patriotism in America. As given by the photo title, one knows that she is not simply of American citizenship; she is of either Italian or Polish descent. These colors stir an automatic emotion in the hearts of most Americans because of their inherent meaning of pride and prosperity. This is an appeal to pathos in people who have been conditioned to feel this way. It is significant that a girl who is of foreign descent is now taking on these same emotions and meanings of these colors because it shows that she is becoming a part of the American culture that she is being raised in.
Another important characteristic that pertains to the girl in the center is the focus and framing that places her there. The girl is the most sharply detailed and focused on while the other students in the background are slightly blurry around their physical features. The girl is also placed in the center due to the framing by the edges of the photo. The other students are aligned in a way that there is no point or person that functions as a central one. Her presence in the foreground, in the otherwise empty space of gravel, also brings the first attention directly to her as opposed to the crowded background space that the students take up behind her.
Thirdly, the vectors of attention of the photograph also appeal to pathos in the form of creating a sense of excitement and anticipation. All of the students in the photograph are facing towards the left of the frame of the photo and by the description given in the title one knows that they are attending a celebration of the May Day crowning and their attention is on whatever part of that celebration is occurring at the moment. This brings about a feeling of excitement, which is also brought about by the combination of the aforementioned coloration and framing. The colors are all bright and stir not only feelings of patriotism but of the excitement of a new spring day. Also, the framing of the photograph does not capture all of the people in the crowd and so the observer is left to assume whether or not there is a large group of people. In large crowds who are all waiting for something to happen, there is often a feeling of excitement and anticipation. This can be taken as a way to look at how the country was feeling at a time of war-they were optimistic about where it was going because of the Victory Garden signs-and the way that immigrant men, women, and especially children, were feeling about their new life in the United States.
The technical aspects of coloration in terms of brightness and saturation, focus and framing of the girl in the center, and vectors of attention of all students in the photograph, all work together to form the pathos through logos argument that depicts two things. The first is the illustration of the assimilation of immigrant children into the American culture at an important time in United States' history. The aspect of coloration does this by bringing attention to the "Victory Garden" signs and the girl in the patriotic outfit; both represent a welcoming of the immigrant children into a new society. The focus and framing of the photo puts the girl in the patriotic outfit in the center, which again signifies the importance of her outfit and her attitude at the time of the photograph. The vectors of attention work to create the feeling of anticipation and excitement of not only the May Day festival but also the new life of the children in the new world. All of these technical elements are logical functions that serve to provide a pathos reaction in the observer of the photographer.
