American Environmental Photographs, 1891-1936: Images from the University of Chicago Library

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Go directly to the collection, American Environmental Photographs, 1891-1936: Images from the University of Chicago Library, in American Memory, or view a Summary of Resources related to the collection.

The thinking skills essential to understanding history can be sharpened by analyzing the images from American Environmental Photographs, 1891-1936 in a variety of ways. Information left out of photographs and their captions provide the starting point for understanding chronological relationships and for conducting question-driven research. The Special Presentation section "Ecology and the Preservation of the Indiana Dunes" affords an opportunity to understand the destruction and preservation of the landscape. Other photographs can be used to practice analyzing and interpreting both images and real-life issues.

Chronological Thinking

The Shore of Lake Manitou, North Manitou Island, Michigan, 1898.

If the bibliographic information provided does not indicate the year the photograph was created, how does one determine where the image fits within the chronology?

Wind River Experiment Station, Stabler, Washington, August, 1920.

Are there people in the image wearing clothing of a certain time period? Are they doing things specific to an era? Are there technology or materials in the image that were only available after a certain point in history? For example, is there a car, a train, or certain tool? If an exact year cannot be determined through study of the image, can one at least determine whether it was taken before or after another image?

Alternatively, one can try to identify images within the collection that illustrate an ecological process taking place over time. Find references to ecological processes in the Special Presentation. Write an explanation of how each photograph relates to the process.

Russian Thistle, Gary Indiana, 1910.

These images depict the development of rail lines, roads, housing, and industry that threatened the dunes. After reading "Ecology and the Preservation of the Indiana Dunes" and inspecting these images, consider the following questions:

What posed the greatest threat to the Indiana Dunes? What steps were taken to preserve the dunes? Whose support helped to preserve the dunes and how? What finally motivated the decision to protect the dunes? How long did it take? If you had been living in Chicago or Gary at the time of these events, do you think you would have considered the impact of urbanization on the dunes? Would that consideration have impacted your activities, such as the use of railroads? Would you have visited the dunes? How might this experience have affected you? Do the forces of development and tourism threaten natural resources today? Are there efforts being made currently to protect certain sites? What steps could or should be taken to protect the landscape?

Henry Chandler Cowles [of the University of Chicago Department of Botany with] Florence Brumback, Pauline Arnold Levi, and [on the] Suburban Electric Line, Chicago. Chicago, Illinois.

To locate more images that illustrate city growth, browse the collection Touring Turn-of-the-Century America, 1880-1920 for more than five-hundred photographs of cityscapes from this period. The collection also includes photographs of leisure pursuits such as camping and beach-going, activities that threatened the fragile ecosystems documented in Environmental Photographs, 1891-1936.

A photograph is a wonderful tool for understanding what it was like to live in another time in history. However, one must remember that the image is the creation of an individual with his or her own perspectives, motives, and opinions. When looking at a picture, we see what the photographer saw. More importantly, we see what the photographer wanted us to see.

Keeping this in mind, one can view the images of this collection with an eye toward discerning the photographers' motives and viewpoints and examining how they are expressed in the image. Given that the photographers of this collection were ecologists, what perspectives or opinions might you expect to find expressed in these images? Do they glorify the beauty of the landscape? Browse the Subject Index for headings such as Alpine regions, Coasts, Meadows, and Mountains. Perhaps they highlight how industry destroys the environment. Browse headings such as Erosion, Floods and Lumbering to see images depicting the threats to these landscapes. Can you identify other ideas that might be reasonably attributed to the photographers as students of ecology?

Subalpine Trees and Meadows in June, near Flathead Lake, Montana.

Contrast Between Eroded and Tree Covered Areas, Wisconsin.

• Viewing these images, do you get a sense of the quality of the landscape being under threat of destruction? Do you get a sense of its magnificence or its grandness?
• Do you gain an understanding of the impact industry had on the environment?
• How has the photographer manipulated the viewer into seeing these things and having this perspective? Look at the lighting, the angle at which the image was taken, the time of day, and the caption.
• If you had lived at the time these photographs were created, what reaction might you have had to them? Do you think you would have taken action in response to these images? What action might you have taken?

Historical Issue-Analysis and Decision-Making

The collection's Special Presentation offers a definition of ecology as the study of "'the manifold and complex relations subsisting between the plants and animals that form one community.'" Under this definition, humans may be considered animals, not life forms separate from natural systems, but part of a larger ecological community. And everything humans do needs to be considered as part of that ecology. Because humans are a type of animal, what humans do is natural. So, anything resulting from human action - erosion, deforestation, etc.- is natural. Or is it? Use the collection to explore this question, central to activities of industrialization and conservation. Search on bridge, railroad, canal, dam, and agriculture for images of human-built structures that have altered the environment and consider the questions below.

A Beaver Dam, Tolland, Colorado.

Silt Collected Above a Check Dam, California.

Both of these images depict dams. One was built by humans, the other by beavers. Each changes the environment by flooding the area behind the dam and causing a change in the vegetation and habitat in the surrounding areas.

• What is the impact of the structure?
• Does it disrupt nature?
• Does it fulfill "human progress"?
• When should "human progress" take precedence over maintaining a natural state?
• Are the results of human action natural? What does it mean to be "natural"?
• Is "human progress" necessarily at odds with nature?
• How would you define "human progress"?
• What definition of progress has had the greatest influence on the shaping of American history and culture?

Historical Research Capabilities

Historical research is often stimulated by a lack of information or by questions about an issue, event, or item. American Environmental Photographs, 1891-1936 contains many photographs that tell an incomplete story to those unfamiliar with the subject matter. For example, photographs depicting industries such as timber or mining at the turn of the twentieth century can provoke questions to stimulate and guide research into these fields.

Search on timber and lumber for images depicting the process and effects of harvesting wood. What questions do these photographs raise? Do outside research to learn about the processes of lumbering at the turn of the century. Then, create detailed descriptions of what these images depict. How did the lumbering industry operate and what was its impact on the environment?

What is taking place in the photograph? Who are the people? What were their roles in the process? What was their socio-economic status likely to have been? Are they likely to have been immigrants? Where are they likely to have been from? Is there anything pictured that associates the image with a certain time in history such as a technique being used that was developed after 1910 or a tool or technology that only existed after a certain date?

Douglas Fir Timber, Tacoma, Washington.

For additional images to research, browse the Subject Index to find photographs with unfamiliar subject matter such as, "An Ungrazed and Overgrazed Andropogon Furcatus Prairie in July with Ptilimnium Nuttallii, Muskogee County, Oklahoma." This image clearly shows two distinct types of vegetation on adjacent fields. The caption states that one side is overgrazed and one is undergrazed. However, it is not readily apparent which side is which. What questions does this picture raise? What do you need to find out in order to understand it? Use your reasoning and research skills to determine which field is overgrazed.