{"id":11556,"date":"2017-08-08T07:56:48","date_gmt":"2017-08-08T11:56:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/phillyhistory.wpengine.com\/?p=11556"},"modified":"2017-08-08T07:56:48","modified_gmt":"2017-08-08T11:56:48","slug":"after-200-posts-what-left-in-the-void","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/2017\/08\/after-200-posts-what-left-in-the-void\/","title":{"rendered":"After 200 Posts, What Left in the Void?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Row of Houses, 1406-08-10-12 North 7th Street, August 30,
1904 (PhillyHistory)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After six years and 200 posts here at PhillyHistory, I have a handle on what\u2019s in the archives, at least the portion of it that\u2019s online. So now\u2019s a good a time as any to take a moment to reflect on what it means to delve into thousands upon thousands of images and write the better part of 175,000 words. To consider what\u2019s next and what\u2019s likely to never be the subject of posts.<\/p>\n

Yes\u2026 I\u2019m asking, what’s it all mean? For what earthy reason do I persist in researching and writing? And why do you continue reading?<\/p>\n

First a little background. This blog was underway long before I got here. It started in 2006, May 30th<\/sup> to be exact, a year after the launch of its parent site, PhillyHistory.org. I was working then as head of WHYY’s Arts & Culture Service. About the same time, web manager Rich Baniewicz urged me to start a blog about the city\u2019s creative culture. An opportunity soon presented itself with the 45-day deadline to keep (or lose) Thomas Eakins\u2019 painting, The Gross Clinic<\/em>. On November 16th<\/sup> I published the first<\/a> in a series entitled \u201cEakins Countdown\u201d in an effort to help keep the painting in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

I liked to think the name of that blog, The Sixth Square<\/em>.\u00a0was resonant in a city with five original, physical squares. The stated upfront purpose: to \u201cserve as a convener of ideas, a framer of issues, and a source of facts relevant to this important civic conversation.\u201d A few others agreed with this mission. When I left for Temple University in 2008, WHYY kept The Sixth Square<\/em> alive\u2014for a time.<\/p>\n

In 2010, Jonathan Butler invited me to write a weekly column at the Philadelphia clone of his successful Brownstoner Blog<\/a> in Brooklyn, New York. Thirty-four columns later that project came to an end, but proved again that we had more than enough material, and sufficient interest, to share discoveries about Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

Then the folks at Azavea offered me this gig. I jumped right in and got to know many of the city photographers. Some were identified only by partial names: Thum, Primavera, Madill in the 1920s. A few others: D. Alonzo Biggard, Andrew D. Warden and Julius Rosenberg (also in the 1920s). Wenzel J. Hess in the 1930s, Francis Balionis and Atheniasis Mallis in the 1950s. I got to know and appreciate work by Haag, Ebba, Cuneo, and Abuhove. And then there\u2019s the unnamed and immensely talented photographers whose identities may be lost to history. I\u2019m partial to the anonymous master worked on North 7th Street (and elsewhere) in the first decade of the 20th century, producing images that always stand out. The \u201cRow of Houses\u201d illustrated above is more than a document, it\u2019s a testament to architecture, to the poetry of frontality and symmetry.<\/p>\n

I got hooked. There\u2019s a rich, wonderful and still untold history to those photographers and their fantastic work. Someday they\u2019ll get their due.<\/p>\n

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West side of 7th Street – 1340 to Corner of Master Street, August 30, 1904. (PhillyHistory)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The images are more than illustrations. I\u2019d be adrift without the photographs, just as I\u2019d be lost without the foothold of historical research. Where the books and articles help me grasp what I\u2019m looking at, the images offer an aesthetic connection more emotional than informational. When the photographer made a connection with time and place, we get to \u201cfeel\u201d the scene, the moment, the time and the place. The images ground the stories, making them readable beyond the words. They enable us to connect place, space and story with an emotional grasp; they are the glue that morphs information into meaning. From my point of view, experiencing that burst of discovery again and again makes the search all the more exciting. When a connection is made, when a nugget of visual realization joins historical narrative, we\u2019ve accomplished something special.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s nothing like the combined power of images and narratives.<\/p>\n

Which is why blogging has worked (mostly, I think) for a couple of hundred times\u2014and why Rutgers University Press will publish 95 in a book to be entitled Insight Philadelphia<\/em>. (More on that another day.)<\/p>\n

What\u2019s next for me during year seven<\/em> here at the PhillyHistory Blog? I\u2019ve kept a running list of ideas, a list that I started with every intention of ticking off the topics, and shrinking the list, one by one. But darn<\/em> if it doesn\u2019t grows longer every time I look at it. And then there are image files I\u2019ve compiled. They grow, too. There are hundreds awaiting research. I have no doubt, if I was so fortunate to write another 200 posts here, or even 400, that there\u2019d still<\/em> be a long and promising list for the future. That\u2019s the kind of collection the City Archives is. That\u2019s the kind of city Philadelphia is.<\/p>\n

I am looking forward to publishing posts on subjects from displacing the pig farmers of South Philadelphia to the manufacturing of subway cars and the evolution of street games. And then there are those images that don\u2019t easily attach themselves to any narrative. Those images can be powerful in what they project, yet weak in that not much can be found out about<\/em> them. These I keep in a growing file entitled \u201cToo Good To Ignore.\u201d It includes the \u201cRow of Houses\u201d of 1904 (illustrated) and others by the same photographer. And then there\u2019s another file entitled \u201cWord on the Street,\u201d my compilation of signage, painted walls, etc. Pictures just too good to let go of. \u201cWest side of 7th<\/sup> Street,\u201d also by the 1904 photographer (illustrated above) is a stellar example. Call it urban visual vernacular. Call it worth the effort.<\/p>\n

Turning to the \u201cVOID\u201d photograph (below) as metaphor, I’m pleased to report there\u2019s much more out there in the void. Only some of it is in hand, other of it is yet to be found. But when it is uncovered, I am absolutely<\/em> certain, there\u2019ll be no shortage of images and stories to reconnect.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the kind of collection the City Archives is. That\u2019s the kind of city Philadelphia is.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Northwest Corner of Broad and Somerset Streets, May 14, 1959. (PhillyHistory.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After six years and 200 posts here at PhillyHistory, I have a handle on what\u2019s in the archives, at least the portion of it that\u2019s online. So now\u2019s a good a time as any to take a moment to reflect on what it means to delve into thousands upon thousands of images and write the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11556\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}