Go to the first book in the Reconstruction Trilogy, “The Leopard’s Spots”
Go to the third book “The Traitor”
The scans below are from a later edition, as it includes illustrations from the 1915 film .. ahem… photo-play, Birth of a Nation. The original illustrations can be found here.
I’m posting a series of blogs featuring scans of the cover, title page and illustrations from three old Southern novels that constitute what the author called “The Reconstruction Trilogy”. Thomas Dixon Jr. (January 11, 1864 – April 3, 1946) was born in Shelby, North Carolina, about 2 hours southwest from where I was born and raised. He, like one of my own relatives, served in state government, but his time was short. He quit due to rampant corruption and referred to politicians as ”the prostitutes of the masses.”
I have not read this trilogy, and actually own quite a few of his novels (10 plus 2 duplicates of different printings), but have only recently begun reading his work starting with his anti-communist book “Comrades” (1909).
The Reconstruction Trilogy is composed of three novels:
After finding “Tomorrow’s Children” I spent a bit of time going through all the books and media on archive.org tagged with the term “eugenics”. There are far too many eugenic themed books for me to quickly cobble together a comprehensive post, but there are a small number of audio and video files on the subject, though mostly critical. I’ve filtered out the conspiracy theorist garbage, “student projects”, and passed on one audio file from a religious radio show that is an interview with an author of a book attacking Margaret Sanger. Sanger was indeed a eugenicist, but the audio was merely a hit-piece. This culling left very little of worth, but I figured I’d post anyway.
I’m listening to this first audio now, so I cannot comment on the eugenic part, but if it’s about a modern exhibit on Eugenics, it’s probably completely critical.
“Mail Order Brides / Eugenics (October 19, 2005)”
Chriss Enss joins host Jeffrey Callison to talk about her new book, Hearts West, which brings to life true stories of mail-order brides of the Gold Rush.
The history of California’s aggressive eugenic sterilization program is revealed in a Sacramento State exhibit. Jeffrey speaks with University of Virginia Professor Paul Lombardo, an expert on California eugenics, and the exhibit’s designer, UC Davis Associate Professor Kathryn Sylva.
Here’s a video sponsored by a slew of Jewish/Holocaust organizations:
Dr. McGee discusses eugenics, past and present, both in Germany and the United States. Eugenics investigated human heredity, defining differences between individuals and groups in terms of “superior” and “inferior” traits. It focused on the social impact of genetic information and emphasized the value of “superior blood” in contrast to the menace of “inferior blood.” Are you well-born? That’s one of the questions addressed.
Here’s an fascinating lecture by Carleton Putnam, the author of the book “Race and Reason”, on the day that was declared “Race and Reason Day”. It was tagged “eugenics” though it’s not really about eugenics, but I’m including it here anyway:
Carleton Putnam, author of Race and Reason: A Yankee View giving a speech in Jackson Mississippi on 10/26/61 at a banquet held at the Olympic Room of the Heidelberg Hotel. In this speech Mr. Putnam addresses the following topics; timelessness of American ideals, integrity of the Jackson leadership and press, What is the Problem?, origins of equalitarianism [Franz Boas,Lysenkosim], persecution of legitimate scientists, UNESCO, race and environmentalist propaganda, the role of the church in the spread of equalitarian race doctrine, perverting Lincoln’s words and ideas, northern indoctrination as “moral” crusade, integrity of civilisation, not states rights must be the defence for racial problems and leftist “change” [prophetic!]
And finally (told you there wasn’t much):
Population Control’s Sad History
Columbia U historian Matthew Connelly’s Fatal Misconception documents 150 years and a cast of thousands involved in the effort to control the fertility of women in the name of population control. We discuss eugenics, China, India and the reality of population stabilization.
More photos of booklets from my archives…
From my personal collection.
Background HERE. Post informed guesses as to years/location in comments below.
Coop thinks the Model T’s are from 1915-16 and 1917-18. I hadn’t realized they were even different cars.
Picture 2 of 28 – “This is a 1915 or 1916 Model T.”
Picture 3 of 28 – “This one is at least a ’17 or ’18 Model T, but I’m not schooled enough to spot the minor differences, and they were pretty similar year to year. The main difference from the earlier T in the other photo is the embossed grille shell, stamped fenders and the rounded hood.”
Scott Huffhines “digs up” the following:
Re: the graveyard shot. Definitely from Maryland since she was referenced in a 1944 Sun obit (which I didn’ want to pay for).
http://tinyurl.com/claraditman
My guess the obit was for one of her children or relatives but not for her.Rob Sherwood:
Number 3 has a license plate, which reads “OHO 256825 1920″ I think. I’m researching that, assuming that OHO refers to “Ohio” and 1920 is a date.
Looking at “http://www.worldlicenceplates….“, the OHO is common in ohio but a 6 digit plate number is only listed on the 1921 license plate.
Christopher Mealie:
What a great find. Nice scans too. From clothing and autos they seem to be 1910s.
A reader named “Jack” that wasn’t able to post for some reason peels a sharp eye on the scenes:
I’m sorry to get this to you via email, but I was unable to post comments when I logged in. These are interesting. You may have already noticed these things, but…
I think the woman in photo 20 is the same woman years later in photo 23 who is sitting on the right. She has the same mouth and the same hairdo. Although the hairdo was probably common back then, the facial similarities seem convincing.
The dog in photo 23 appears to be the same one sitting next to the boy in photo 19. The boy in photo 19 looks like the toddler in photo 27.
The man sitting on the left with the woman’s arm around his shoulders is the same guy standing in the middle in photo 24. Judging by that dimple on his chin and his overall looks, he is also the same guy wearing the hat in photo 11. That could also be him on the horse in photos 13 and 15.
The same little boy appears in photos 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, and 12. There may be some more repeat subjects but I’m not sure.
The rustic wooden bench in photos 20 and 21 is interesting. That would be a cool heirloom to have, eh? This isn’t really important, but the bench seems to have moved when you compare it’s position relative to things near it on the ground such as twigs, holes in the dirt, etc. Based on the way the man and the woman are dressed in those two shots, I’m thinking they may have gone to church that day. If so, then the paper leaning up against the leg of the bench may be the program for that day’s service. I’m not enough of a historian to know if churches could afford to do that back then though.
It’s been a little while since I posted a project. The last one might have been my Accordion Box that I refurbished. Yesterday I found three boxes of 5×7″ and 4×6.5″ glass negatives at a local junk shop that I stop in at least once a week. The place mainly deals with estates, so you never know what’s going to come in the door.
Being, well, me… I looked quickly at a few of the slides, asked for a discount on all three boxes (they were marked $4 each, but they gave ‘em all to me for $9) and then spent my Saturday morning scanning them and then doing a small amount of color correction in Adobe Lightroom, and now this afternoon putting them online.
The photos themselves will go into a post by themselves, but I did document the process a bit for here.
I WOULD like some assistance, if you’re inclined, in dating and locating these images. There are a ton of clues in the images for the keen observer. Please use the comments section to make suggestions (and give reasons).
Being the weirdo I am, I own a few bags of cotton gloves for occasions just like this. I also have a few other things laying around that I used in the process, as I’ll detail below.
Two of the negatives were broken, and many had deteriorated or had some decay going on. I did my best to wipe off the dust and smudges on the glass side, and did a gentle wiping of the emulsion side. I suppose I could have looked online to see what should be done to clean these properly, but I didn’t. I did quite a bit though.
I tool some thick matteboard and cut a template out so that I could place the negatives in the scanner consistently. I know I’ve got some plastic templates that they provided, but had no idea where a “cleaned them” to last time (to the spot I’m sure I thought I’d never forget).
There are three boxes, but the third wit the smaller negatives had no printing like these.
Here is one of the negatives on the scanner with the template. The template needs to be removed before the scan starts.
Just because, here’s the top of my scanner.
Holding up a negative, in case you’ve never seen such a thing.
Once the negatives were scanned, I took some packing sheets and cut them down to size to insert into the top and bottom.
Then I took some archival storage bags and put the boxes in them.
Now that I have everything scanned, I’d be willing to donate the negatives to either a museum, historical society, or the living family. One of the photos is a grave marker, so there’s a name to go on. If I can figure out a region, that’d narrow it down.
Oh, and the “1920″ in the post title isn’t really a guess, but it sounds good.
I’ve scanned and converted the following from Popular Photography, Feb. 1941.
——
You can improve your pictures by showing less in them. Fig. 1 (right) is cluttered up with personal detail. Fig. 2 (above), which the author titled "Nemesis of Childhood," is a "de-personalized" version of the same subject. Note how much more interesting it is.
WE all realize that there is an important difference between good photographs and good pictures.
A fine photograph wins our admiration as a piece of work well done. But, having admired it, we are anxious to get on to something else.
A real picture, however, is just as interesting a week from now as it is today—even more interesting. A picture brings us satisfaction that is far deeper than the superficial admiration that we extend to mere technical excellence.
In this series of articles we are discussing some of the qualities that contribute to good pictures. Pictorial excellence is not altogether a matter of composition—although sometimes we are assured that it is. Much of pictorial excellence is inherent in the subject matter itself. In finding a picture, at least 75 per cent of the job is finding your subject and the best way of approaching it with your camera.
Last month I indicated the four qualities that subject matter should possess in order to lend itself to the making of good pictures. It must be
Last month we discussed how best to find unity in subject matter. We will now consider ways to steer clear of its purely personal aspects.
fi3. 3 (left) shows the result of too much "expression." To avoid extremes like this, catch your subjects face in repose, as shown in Fig. 4 (above). Fig. 5 (right) is an ordinary picture of an individual. Note how the subject has been "de-personalized" by distortion, used to make his face longer in Fig. 6 (above).
First—a warning. It is important to understand that at this time we are not concerned with portraiture. Photographic portraiture, by its very intent, is limited in its appeal. Conventional portraits are made to conform to the subject’s vanity and for the indulgent admiration of friends and relatives. The usual portrait, therefore, speaks in the most restricted of personal terms. Insofar as a portrait becomes a picture, it must transcend the limits of personality. It must have some broad appeal that will make it of interest to others beside the subject’s friends and relatives. No matter how good a technical job it is, it must have something more than mere photographic accuracy to make it a real picture.
To illustrate this point, let us consider the case of a man you’ve undoubtedly met; we’ll call him “Joe.”
He corners you on the 8:15 local, at the office, in the locker room, or even on the street. With a fanatical gleam in his eye, he pulls forth a little bundle of prints.
“Hiya, Bill,” he says eagerly. “Want to see some swell pictures? I took them of Junior, on his birthday.”
Interpreting your expression of resignation as consent, he plunges ahead. “Now, this one shows him on the front steps. He moved a little, but you can see how big he is getting. Here he is with his birthday cake. It’s a little underexposed of course, but that’s Junior right there. Now, here’s a really good shot of him riding his tricycle—`tike,’ he calls it. By the way, did I tell you the cute thing he said the other day when I was giving him his bath? . . . Oh, I did? . . . Well, this picture—Oh Boy!—wait till you see this one! It shows him when. . . .”
And so on and on—as long as you can stand to listen to it. Now, Joe is really a nice guy, and a fairly good amateur photographer as well. But when he is in one of his “did-I-show-you-these” moods, people carefully sidestep him. The prints are really not so bad, and Junior is obviously well fortified with vitamins and destined to grow up to be a good citizen and a leading light in his community—but there is not a picture in the lot.. Parental pride and pictorial discrimination rarely go hand-in-hand. It is obvious that Joe is interested in Junior only for Junior’s sake—not as subject matter for real pictures.
Junior’s parents are primarily interested in his personal aspects—matters of profound indifference to the general public. But—it is important to note—Junior also can be pictorially presented. Note, for example, Roy Pinney’s first-prize print, “Hunger Strike,” which appeared in the December issue of POPULAR PHOTOGRAPHY.
Of course, the camera does the personal and particular with great ease. When it is well done, we like this sort of thing, just as we enjoy a bit of gossip—what he said, and what she said, and what I heard about her first husband. But mere gossip, however amusing, will not make literature—nor will the photographic equivalent of gossip ever produce a picture. Nevertheless, we like this photographic gossip. We like it so well, in fact, that the biggest publishing bonanza of the century has been found in various picture magazines that tell us, in thousands of undistinguished photographs, just what he said, and what she said, and give us the very specific low-down on her first husband.
We like these gossipy photographs—but we don’t like them for very long. We must have fresh, more intimate, and more personal items if our interest is to be kept up. To find any sort of permanent pictorial interest, we must abandon our quest for the merely personal. We must seek a more detached viewpoint and learn to evaluate subject matter in other than personal terms. In order to make pictures, we must “de-personalize”—if I may coin a word—our subject matter.
Here, I want to outline four ways in which this “de-personalization” may take place. There are numerous other possibilities, of course, but the discussion of these four should bring out the general procedure.
The first of these methods consists of avoiding or eliminating personal elements in the environment or background. Environment tells us a great deal about the personality of the person who creates it or lives in it—but the things it tells us belong largely to the category of gossip, which we described above. Life, for example, is very fond of showing us people —people of all ages and conditions of life, in their completely detailed, native environment. There is no gainsaying the vividness of these photographs as social records, but they should not be taken as pictorial standards. The very completeness of their backgrounds destroys their value as pictures.
Fig. 1 might be taken as typical of this sort of fully-realized background. If it appeared in a picture magazine, it might have some such caption as this: “Miss Grace Willoughby, teacher of the third grade in the Avenue A Elementary School.” Here is plenty of environment and background, but it is all particular and peculiar to Grace Willoughby of Avenue A. If there is a picture anywhere about, we cannot see it because there is too much Grace.
How shall we go about dealing with this too-personal environment? One way would be to eliminate it completely and photograph the figure in front of a plain black or white background. This solution is sometimes useful, but it is too simplified and too drastic for most occasions. Backgrounds are very valuable pictorial elements, but they must be reduced to their most simple and important elements.
Fig. 2 shows us one solution of the school-teacher problem. Here we have some of the same elements of environment as those that appear in Fig. 1—the desk, the ruler, the book—but in Fig. 2 they are used as symbols of the “Nemesis of Childhood” rather than as part of the personalized clutter of Miss Grace Willoughby.
The personal element has been eliminated from Fig. 2. It is not any particular teacher in any particular school on any particular day. It is simply an alarmed child’s impression of the “Pedagogical Presence.” Fig. 2 is, in a word, a picture; Fig. 1 certainly is not.
This, then, is our first suggestion for the “de-personalization” of subject matter:
Reduce personal detail of back‑ground or environment to symbolic elements.
The second method of escaping from the purely personal limits of subject matter has to do with the expression of the model. An excess of expression always limits a picture, because it brings the model’s personality to the fore. A good picture is impossible when the model insists on throwing her personality at the camera through her eyes and teeth. There is much more likelihood of getting a picture from a face in repose than from one that is the parade ground for all sorts of emotions. Such transitory expressions are likely to assume a violent or hysterical aspect when fixed in glassy permanence by the camera.
Even a somewhat standardized theatrical expression such as that displayed in Fig. 3 is a bar to pictorial representation. Personality is again insisted upon, even though it is “phony.”
How much better pictorially is Fig. 4, in which the model does not throw herself at you.
Here we have the second suggestion for the “de-personalization” of subject matter:
Avoid too much “expression” in your model.
The third method of reducing the personal implications of subject matter is the use of distortion by projection control.
Any sort of graphic representation involves some degree of distortion. Even a straightforward photograph like Fig. 5 is distorted, for the colors of the original have been reduced to a scale of grays, and the three dimensions have been reduced to two. But a distortion of form, such as the elongation shown in Fig. 6, helps us to attain a much greater degree of detachment. Fig. 5 is a very indifferent sort of portrait. Fig. 6, however, is effective as a picture. And it does not owe its effectiveness to the fact that it represents any particular person.
Note that such distortion is effective only when it stresses inclinations already inherent in the subject. In this respect it follows the technique of selective exaggeration practiced by the cartoonist. The length of face noticeable in Fig. 5, for example, is given pictorial exaggeration in Fig. 6.
Thus, the third suggestion for the “depersonalization” of subject matter is the following:
Make occasional use of distortion as a means of effective emphasis of the qualities of the subject.
A fourth valuable method of reducing the personal implications of the subject is afforded by the choice of the angle from which the subject is photographed.
A child, when he first attempts to draw the human countenance, tries his hand at a full-face representation—an irregular oval with squiggles for eyes, nose, and mouth. A little later he tries a profile—an arrogantly jutting nose, with dashes to indicate mouth and eye. He isn’t concerned with ideas of personality; he simply draws faces. It is considerably later in his career, if ever, that he essays the complications of the three-quarter angle.
In like manner, the maker of pictures who is interested in faces rather than personality will do well to cultivate these two primitive angles—the full face and the profile. The faces about us are most familiar when seen in some variant of the three-quarter angle. This is the angle usually favored by conventional portraiture, and is most clearly bound up with ideas of personality. On the other hand, the purely pictorial values of a face are most frequently realized in profile or full-face representation.
Another use of angle is shown in Fig. 2. The low viewpoint enhances the impression of detachment, so that the figure of the school teacher looms implacable and as impersonal as the multiplication table.
The fourth suggestion, therefore, is:
Reduce the personal implication of subject matter by careful choice of the angle of presentation.
Wise application of these four suggestions is certain to improve your pictures. When you get to working with them, they undoubtedly will bring to light other means toward the same ends. Forget about them when you are taking portraits, but use them to best advantage when you are after real pictures.
