I'm confused

So much history, so little time

This post may seem a little strange. I guess that’s because it is. My sister and I were going over some of my mother’s old ‘stuff’, and came across some scrapbooks. (See also, my post ‘Death and Taxes’) This scrapbook must be over a hundred years old, probably more like 120. Scrapbooks like this were a “thing” back then. After all, photography was fairly primitive, there was no television, and movies were in their infancy. And there was no broadcast radio. So what did people do with their time? Well, what would you do with your time, if you didn’t have videos, telephones, cameras or computers? You would have time on your hands, for sure. So, maybe you’d make scrapbooks.

Scrapbooks were typically filled with ‘trade’ cards, which were colored advertisements. Also, there were valentines and such. Hey, it was something to do, when there wasn’t much to do.

My sister and I aren’t sure who made this scrapbook, but it’s the right age to perhaps be our grandmother’s. What intrigues me more than anything it that, in and amongst some fairly routine white-oriented cards, there a couple that are of blacks.

I’m trying to imagine some girl in perhaps 1910, spending time pasting in the various cards she had amassed. The girl would almost certainly be around ten years old. Now, why did this girl paste in those pictures of black people? My sister and I can only speculate. We know my mother had been very upset at the racism of the time. Did she get that from her mother? Her mother’s grandfather fought for the North in the civil war. It’s not unreasonable to think she had firsthand knowledge of racial issues. She may have known living, freed slaves. This would be a good time to mention that her family was always in the New York area, and I imagine her neighbors and relatives had anti-slavery sentiments, although they may not have welcomed blacks into their neighborhood.

So, here is some girl, most likely a relative of mine, slipping in cards that are incongruous with the general theme of things. Something was on her mind. It’s easy today to be self-assured about how anti-racist we all are, but things weren’t as clear then as they are today. Some ten-year-old girl was, I think, processing things as best she knew how.

This photo depicts freed slaves contemplating their future as free people. Note the broken shackles in the foreground. Whatever issues we have today, we take for granted that slavery is no more. But at the time, it was something that people were still adjusting to. Apparently, ten-year-old girls were adjusting, also.

I find this card to be a bit intriguing. I’ve read much of the literature of the time, and for better or worse, blacks tended to be quoted using an unflattering dialect. Even anti-slavery, pro civil rights literature still used this sort of dialect. Consider the picture above. Is it racist? Is it just typical light-hearted humor? Who would give such a card? Who would wish to receive it? Was it intended to be given/received by blacks? My answer to all those questions is, I’m not sure. I do know that we shouldn’t be too quick to presume to know the thinking of our ancestors. Presupposing their outlooks is its own sort of bigotry.

When I saw the black girl in the card above, I immediately thought of the Coppertone girl. For those too young to know, the Coppertone girl, as depicted above, was a universally known character in 1960s era sunscreen ads. Today, I think such an ad, even when the girl is white, would be considered offensive. The parallels between the black girl of the early 1900s and the white girl of the 1960s are obvious. Is this coincidence? Is there some imperceptible underlying reason for the similarities? Damned if I know.

The really important aspects of history go deeper than just names and dates. We must remember that these were all real people. They deserve our consideration. They deserve an attempt to understand who they were and what mattered to them. Because we did not come from nowhere. We came from them.

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I’ve done a lot of speculating, here. I’d love to hear thoughts and comments, regardless of whether they support or disagree with my observations.