Prologue: Pieces of History

The introduction wall to the "Searching for the Seventies" exhibit with an oversized Kodachrome slide light box. (Photo by Amanda Perez)

Amanda’s first step in designing the exhibit was to look for inspirational images. Some of the most intriguing came from the pages of 1970s home design articles, found on an independent blog. What struck Amanda were the supergraphics—large wall decorations popular in the seventies—present in most of the images.

“I remembered them from my childhood, from my parents’ friends’ houses,” she said.

In the exhibit, the supergraphics are meant to create a seventies vibe without detracting from the photographs, which are the true focus.

Designers from the Exhibits office matched colors for the supergraphic. (Photo by Amanda Perez)

Amanda chose three theme colors as the exhibit’s three-part organization emerged from the planning process.

First came “Ball of Confusion,” derived from a 1970 song by The Temptations. Jimi Hendrix, who died in 1970, inspired the color purple in the exhibit. According to Amanda, “Purple became a sort of theme.”

When she started looking at warmer colors to balance the purple, she knew that they had to use orange because it was such a staple of the seventies. Orange also fit well with the “Everybody is a Star” section of the exhibit.

For the “Pave Paradise” section, they “sort of settled on red.” Amanda knew they’d picked the right colors when they began looking at them in conjunction with the photographs. “The colors synced with people’s clothes, with the images,” she said. “It really is about the photographs.”

Samples of the colors used in the exhibit. (Photo by Amanda Perez)

The supergraphics and three theme colors also serve a functional purpose: the graphics, painted in the corresponding theme colors, lead visitors through the different sections of the exhibit. But the lines never touch the photographs “so that they have their own space on the wall,” Amanda said.

There is also an “On Assignment” section of the exhibit, decorated with a film strip pattern and featuring the work of four different DOCUMERICA photographers. According to Dan, these sections will lead the the viewer slightly outside the main exhibit into an alcove that focuses on the work of those four photographers.

The filmstrip runs along the top of the exhibit wall. (Photo by Amanda Perez)

The cases that hold the photographs, also designed by Dan and Amanda, are constructed from aluminum and colored with powder-coating rather than traditional paint. Powder-coating releases almost no VOCs and is considered more environmentally friendly than traditional liquid paints. These cases will also travel well if the exhibit is shared at other locations.

Besides color and layout, another important decision was the choice of fonts. The exhibit is Helvetica based, for both symbolic and practical reasons. The font became very popular in the seventies, and many businesses redesigned their logos using the readable, minimalist font. Both Dan and Amanda grew up in the DC area, so they’re especially familiar with Helvetica; it’s used on all Metro signs and literature. (For fellow design nerds: Dan, Amanda, and I also discussed a fantastic documentary about the typeface, called Helvetica.)

The font’s legibility was also important. Because there are so many photographs and labels in the exhibit, the designers wanted something clean that wouldn’t distract from the photos. Helvetica is a large family of typefaces, so it allowed for a clear hierarchy of headings and subheadings. To incorporate a  more playful feel while keeping it simple, the design team used a rounded condensed version of Helvetica as the largest subheading font. The exhibit also includes a distinctive header font called Gala, which is “funkier” than Helvetica and gives the exhibit more personality.

From top to bottom, samples of the fonts used in the exhibit: Helvetica Neue (body copy), Helvetica Rounded Condensed (sub heading), and Gala (heading).

When I asked them what they enjoyed most about designing the exhibit, Dan and Amanda had a difficult time deciding on just one aspect. Dan pointed to the design board on Amanda’s desk, saying, “That was the most fun.”

She agreed. “True. It was really fun pulling together the concepts for the exhibit.” Amanda, originally a photography major, noted that she also retouched all the photos for the catalog, so “I got to spend a lot of time with each photo.” Dan added that it was great to see the final photos because they had spent much of the design process looking at pink-hued reference slides.

Both agreed that it was exciting to see the final design come together. The walls have been painted, the photographs framed, and the final design elements pieced together.

“Searching for the Seventies” opens March 8—come see the photographs, as well as Dan and Amanda’s amazing design work!

(Wondering why these photos look so clear and crisp, unlike your 1970s family photos? There’s a reason! Stay tuned for our next blog post.)

Today’s blog post comes from Jessie Kratz, archives specialist in the Center for Legislative Archives. If you are participating in the 100th anniversary of the parade on Sunday, stop by the National Archives to see the document that finally gave women the right to vote. The 19th Amendment is on display from March 1 to March 8.

As woman suffrage advocates marched along Pennsylvania Avenue on March 3, 1913, they were met with crowds of unruly men blocking their paths and shouting derogatory remarks.

While making preparations for the parade, organizers had made repeated attempts to secure police protection—they even contacted the Secretary of War seeking assistance from the U.S. military. Richard H. Sylvester, Chief of DC Police, had assured organizers that he could manage the situation without the military, but he ultimately failed to control the crowd.

Exhibit No. 36, View of the Woman Suffrage Parade from the Willard Hotel, Washington DC, from the Hearings before the Subcommittee of the Committee of the District of Columbia of the United States Senate, pursuant to S. Res 499, March 4, 1913, 63rd Congress (Y4.D63/2:W84); RG 287, National Archives

The poor treatment of the marchers sparked immediate outrage.

The day after the parade, the Senate passed a resolution authorizing the Committee on the District of Columbia to investigate the police’s handling of the incident. The committee collected evidence and heard from over 100 witnesses, including parade organizer and suffragist Alice Paul; Julia Lathrop, chief of the Children’s Bureau; parade attendees from around the country; and witnesses who spoke on behalf of the Metropolitan Police.

The women testified about their experiences—some noted the lack of police or their indifference and applauded the Boy Scouts for being more effective than the police. Others described drunken men along the parade route hooting and jeering at them, blocking their path, and making insulting remarks (one young girl was called a “Georgia Peach”—an indignity at the time).

A resolution from the Men’s League for Woman Suffrage in King’s County noted that the women in the parade, “many of whom were among the finest intellectual leaders of their sex, were . . . subject to insult, ribaldry, and personal abuse.”

Resolution of the Men’s League for Woman Suffrage of King’s County, New York, calling on Congress to investigate the woman suffrage parade, April 14, 1913 (HR 63A-H4.4); Records of the U.S. House of Representatives, National Archives

Congress collected and published an immense amount of material—the hearings and report are available in Federal Government Depository Libraries nationwide. Some of the report can be read online.

Congress’s report concluded that the parade route was not adequately cleared or protected and that the commissioners of the District of Columbia should have requested that Congress give them authority to close the parade route. The committee recommended legislation giving the commissioners full authority to stop all traffic and travel on any street permitted for a parade. While the report did not sanction the DC police department, it prompted a lengthy investigation that eventually led to Sylvester’s removal in 1915.

Suffrage Parade Hearings before the Subcommittee of the Committee on the District of Columbia of the United States Senate, pursuant to S. Res 499, March 4, 1913, 63rd Congress (Y4.D63/2:W84); RG 287, Publications of the U.S. Government, National Archives

The 19th Amendment is on display from March 1 to March 8 at the National Archives Building in honor of the 100th anniversary of the 1913 woman’s suffrage parade in Washington, DC. We will also be screening the 2004 film “Iron-Jawed Angels” at noon on March 2.

Today’s guest post is from curator Bruce Bustard.

The 19th Amendment guarantees American women the right to vote. Achieving this milestone required a lengthy and difficult struggle; victory took decades of agitation. Beginning in the mid-19th century, woman suffrage supporters lectured, wrote, marched, lobbied, and practiced civil disobedience to achieve what many Americans considered radical change.

Between 1878, when the amendment was first introduced in Congress, and 1920, when it was ratified, champions of voting rights for women worked tirelessly, but their strategies varied. Some tried to pass suffrage acts in each state—nine western states adopted woman suffrage legislation by 1912. Others challenged male-only voting laws in the courts. More public tactics included parades, silent vigils, and hunger strikes. Supporters were heckled, jailed, and sometimes physically abused.

By 1916, most of the major suffrage organizations united behind the goal of a constitutional amendment. When New York adopted woman suffrage in 1917, and President Wilson changed his position to support an amendment in 1918, the political balance began to shift.

House Joint Resolution 1 proposing the 19th amendment to the states, 1919.

On May 21, 1919, the House of Representatives passed the amendment, and two weeks later, the Senate followed. When Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the amendment on August 18, 1920, the amendment was adopted. While decades of struggle to include African Americans and other minority women in the promise of voting rights remained, the face of the American electorate had changed forever.

Today’s post comes from Christopher Abraham at the Eisenhower Presidential Library. He answers a question each week on Facebook. This week’s Ask an Archivist query comes from Pennsylvania.

“Did Eisenhower teach Patton how to drive a tank at Camp Colt in Gettysburg?” Anonymous

Captain George S. Patton knew how to drive a tank by the time Captain Dwight D. Eisenhower was in command of Camp Colt. In November 1917, Patton visited a French light tank training session in the forest of Compiegne where he drove a Renault tank and fired its gun. He was so interested in the machine that his instructors had to find a mechanic to answer his questions.

After the closure of Camp Colt in late 1918, Lieutenant Colonel Dwight D. Eisenhower (shown here standing in front of the tank) continued serving with the Tank Corps until 1922 when he left Camp Meade, Maryland (where this photograph was taken) to serve as executive officer for the 20th Infantry Brigade in the Panama Canal Zone. (Eisenhower Presidential Library, ARC 876971)

After taking a course at the army’s first tank school at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, Eisenhower was ordered in November 1918 to report to Camp Meade, Maryland. There he joined the 65th Engineers and organized what would become the 301st Tank Battalion. In March he was told that the battalion would go to France and that he would be in command. To his disappointment, he was sent to Camp Colt in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where he was placed in command of the Tank Corps. He was temporarily promoted to lieutenant colonel in October and was told he would leave for France in November to command an armored unit. The armistice was signed before he could embark.

Eisenhower traveled with First Transcontinental Motor Convoy as a Tank Corps observer in 1919 after closing Camp Colt. Eisenhower would meet Patton for the first time back at Camp Meade (later Fort Meade) that fall. He and Patton were responsible for creating the Infantry Tank School where they would serve as both students and instructors.

Library staff answer every reference question we receive, but not all questions will be posted to Ask an Archivist. Questions will be edited for length and privacy. If you would like to ask a question, please contact us!

This self portrait, with carefully groomed mustache in the center, is a glamorous photo of a hardworking, groundbreaking photographer. James Stephen “Steve” Wright was from a working-class family in Washington, DC. By the 1940s he was head of photographic operations for the Federal Works Agency.

But like many young black men at the time, he began at the very bottom of the career ladder, working at the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works (FEAPW) as a messenger and chauffeur. However, unlike other young black men at time, Wright worked for FEAPW Administrator Harold Ickes, who fought battles over segregation and discrimination, and who hired like-minded people into his agency. Wright moved on to assembling newspaper clippings and eventually was recruited by the FEAPW photographic head Hyman Greenberg.

In an interview with Nicholas Natason, Wright recalled that “In those days, it was tough for a black man even to become a file clerk in the government . . . You had to mind your P’s and Q’s, because there were lower-level whites who resented the fact that you were doing photography at all and were waiting for you to stumble.”

Steve Wright, precedent-setting photographer for New Deal agencies and the Department of State, shown during his Federal Works Agency days.

But Wright was extremely good at his job; he was efficient, diplomatic and organized. As the New Deal picture units began to consolidate in the Federal Works Agency (FWA) photographic section, he traveled the country taking pictures for several agencies at the same time.

At 27, Wright became the Photographic Section head. He coordinated an operation that generated over 2,400 images a day. His six-man unit included another black photographer, Randolph MacDougall.

He also tackled a workflow problem that was racially charged: distributing the assignments. He told Natason that “I wanted to avoid the problem that Roger Smith faced at the OWI [News Bureau] where he was expected to do only the black coverages, and then felt that his work was being sabotaged [by whites] in the lab.” Instead, Wright arranged the workflow so that assignments were given to the photographer who was available at that moment, and that same photographer also did all the lab work. The subject matter—black or white—was not considered in the assignment.

Wright avoided being pigeonholed into photographing only black subjects, or photographing news from a “black angle” only. In 1945, he moved to the photographic lab at the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), where he was one of the photographers loaned to the Department of State to cover the United National Conference on International Organization in San Francisco. Wright covered the full range of signing and speeches by all delegates. His skin color made him stand out: “In a way, being black was an advantage because I was noticed immediately, and if I was going to encounter a problem from security people, it was going to happen early on and get worked out then and there. So after the first day, everyone knew me and I went wherever I wanted.”

The assignment led into a 25-year career at the State Department. In 1957, Wright was appointed as Photographic Branch Chief by Fernleigh Graninger. He created State’s first central file on diplomatic personalities, events, and facilities.

Wright’s contribution to the State Department was enormous. Wright and fellow black photographers Robert MacNeill and Whitney Keith created over a third of the 100,000 images taken for the State Department from the late 1040s to the mid-1970s.

This blog post was adapted from Nicholas Natason’s article “From Sophie’s Alley to the White House: Rediscovering the Visions of Pioneering Black Government Photographers” in the Summer 1997 issue of Prologue magazine.