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Go directly to the collection, The South Texas Border, 1900-1920: Photographs from the Robert Runyon Collection, in American Memory, or view a Summary of Resources related to the collection.
Complementing the photographs of South Texas Border with texts and music, teachers can provide students with several creative language arts projects. Runyon's photographs of the Mexican Revolution and small towns in Texas can be used in conjunction with literature to understand these topics better, as well as the relationship between these two media. Folk songs from the American Memory collection, Southern Mosaic, bring another dimension to students' understanding of the border culture while also providing the impetus to learn about and write ballads. Runyon's photographs can also be used to learn about and practice journalism and the art of portraiture in image and word.
Literature and Small-Town America
Barber shop, February 1913.
Water vendors (piperos).
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Students can compare literary portrayals of small-town America with Runyon's photographic documentation of life in small Texas towns. Search on commercial and street for images of small-town business districts and commercial establishments, such as movie theaters, soda fountains, banks, and hotels. Or search on residence and interior for views of domestic life. What are the similarities and differences between homes and businesses as recorded in Runyon's photographs of the past and these places as they exist now? What would life in a small Southeastern Texas town have been like in the 1920s?
Sinclair Lewis portrays small-town America in the beginning of the twentieth century in his novel, Main Street. Students can read all or parts of this novel and use the following questions to compare it with Runyon's photographs.
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- What visual imagery does Lewis use in his novel?
- How are Lewis's scenes similar to or different from those captured in Runyon's photographs?
- If Lewis had used a small Texas town as the setting for his novel, how would it have differed from his fictional midwest town, Gopher Prairie?
- Based on Lewis's novel and Runyon's photographs, would you conclude that there were so many similarities between small towns in America in the 1920s as to make one representative of all? Or do you find that regional differences outweigh national similarities?
- Why do you think Lewis titled his novel Main Street? Do you find these reasons reflected in Runyon's photographs?
- How does Lewis's portrayal of life in small-town America affect the way you view Runyon's images and the inferences you make from them?
Literature and the Mexican Revolution
Mariano Azuela's The Under-dogs, written in 1915, is acclaimed as the greatest novel on the Mexican Revolution. Students can read several chapters in this short novel and select photographs from The South Texas Border to illustrate scenes or events depicted by Azuela. Based on Runyon's documentation, do you find Azuela's portrayal of the Revolution to be realistic?
Poetry and Folk Music
In 1939, ethnologists John and Ruby Lomax traveled Texas and other southern states, making recordings of folk music now presented in the American Memory collection, Southern Mosaic. One type of song the Lomaxes collected is the border ballad, coming from the United States-Mexican border. Many of the Lomaxes' border ballads came from José Suárez in Brownsville, Texas, who explains in the collection's fieldnotes, "'Whenever, in the old days, anything exciting happened, a poet made verses about it and distributed the composition as a broadside. Musicians made up the air or tune for the verses.'" Students can read more about these ballads as well as some of their lyrics in section 6 of Southern Mosaic's fieldnotes. They can also hear recordings of some of these songs by searching on ballad and selecting one of the songs in Spanish. Included among these, are "Corrido villésta de la toma de Matamoros" about Pancho Villa in Matamoros, "Corrido del soldado", about a raid in Brownsville, and "Corrido de los rangers", about a feud between Texas Rangers and Brownsville officials in 1912.
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Whether in poetry or song, ballads generally relate a detailed story. Students can write their own ballad lyrics based on Runyon's photographs. Have them browse and conceptualize some portion of the photographs as a story. They can supplement the photographs with text books to write a fairly factual story about a battle or a person, or they might create a more imaginative story loosely based on one of the images.
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Mr. and Mrs. Jones, 1921.
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Copy Photo: Venustiano Carranza speaking to crowd at Durango, Mexico.
Mule car, 1910.
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In addition to the narrative structure, students can practice using symbolism, simile, and metaphor. In one of José Suárez's ballads, a father laments to his son, "'When money was good, I bought chickens, cows, horses, etc., but at forty cents a hundred, I am very poor, and I walk the streets of Laredo like a deaf mule.'" Have students examine the simile with which this lyric ends. What does it mean to walk the streets like a deaf mule? Students may want to search for mule in The South Texas Border to understand the particular significance of mules to border communities and culture. Have your students identify other elements of border culture and use them in their lyrics to express feelings and ideas through symbolism, simile, and metaphor.
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Journalism
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Many of Runyon's photographs, especially those of the Mexican Revolution, were used by American newspapers. Students can choose an image or set of images from the collection and write a newspaper article about the topic or event that the photographs document. By requiring students to use images of a particular aspect of the collection, such as the Mexican Revolution or small-town America, teachers may help establish and test students' comprehension of that topic.
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Biplane, crash.
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May Fest, May 1, 1916.
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As a basis for their writing, students can refer to examples of journalism in current-day newspapers or those of the early twentieth century, found in their local libraries, or on the World Wide Web. For a greater emphasis on journalism, this project could also involve comparing newspaper writing of the early twentieth century with that of today. Or, you can ask students to report on local and school events for a classroom newspaper. Those students with access to a camera can even take their own pictures for the newspaper.
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Portraiture and Character Sketch
Family portrait.
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This collection of Robert Runyon's photographs includes nearly 3,000 portraits, catalogued as such in the Subject Index. They provide the impetus for two creative projects. First, students can study portraiture by comparing these images with portraits of today. Have students consider the similarities and differences with the following questions:
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- What kinds of people are pictured?
- Based on the collection, when and why do you think people had portraits made? When and why do people commission portraits today?
- How are people dressed?
- How are they posed?
- What is the setting or background?
- What feelings or information are conveyed through portraits and how?
- Where does one find portraits today? For what are they used?
- What do you think were the main purposes of Runyon's portraits? What are the main purposes of portraiture today?
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Use these questions in a class discussion to explore how different elements and techniques of portraiture are used to convey information or give impressions about people. Then challenge your students to use what they've learned in making their own portraits of people. Ask them to articulate what they want to convey about their subject, how they plan to do so, and whether they think they were successful.
Second, students may exercise their imaginations and descriptive-writing skills in using a portrait as a starting point for a character sketch or even a short story. You may want to supply them with literary examples to help them consider what techniques an author uses to create a powerful character. Students may also compare these techniques with those of a portrait photographer.
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Julia Fernandez.
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