Finding pictures

Finding images to use for this assignment was, in one sense, not difficult at all, because I had relatively few to choose from. That being said, it was difficult to actually track anything down that worked well for the effect I was trying to achieve. I used the websites of the Library of Congress, the National Archives, and ArchivesUSA, as well as resorting to images used in Wikipedia entries. The entry titled "Build with Good Bricks" is a scan of an image I found on microfilm at the Library of Congress. That was one of the initial images I knew I was going to use, but choosing the rest was difficult.

The animated map of colonialism was one I was most conflicted about using, because to get the animation to work, I had to link to the actual file, instead of it being embedded directly in my blog; because it is easily the most vague and abstract of the images I used; but also because of its source, has legitimacy (and perhaps accuracy) issues. These issues however, for the purpose of the point I am trying to make, I feel are within reasonable parameters to warrant the image's use to show that colonialism was (and perhaps still is) a considerably problematic issue in the world, especially in areas represented at the Bandung Conference.

The most frustrating part of this exercise was negotiating the Blogger software to make my entries appear as they should. I had to upload the images two (and in some cases three) times before everything appeared as it should and in the correct order. My own technological ignorance aside, however, the process of thinking through this project - how to visually depict something that I am much more used to saying in words, gave me increased respect for the actual possibility of doing credible and worthwhile work presented in an online fashion.

Colonialism and its Discontents, 1492 - 2007

Over the last several hundred years, and based largely in Europe, Western civilizations waged colonial wars of occupation against the populations of much of Asia and the Southern Hemisphere for cheaper access to the natural resources located there. This map is animated to show the color coded geographical scope of European colonial rule, roughly by century. The legacies of colonialism have plagued the twentieth century, resulting in one of the more violent periods in recorded history. Following World War II, a wave of independence movements swept through colonial territories, resulting in the creation of new nations.
(Image source: Wikipedia entry for "Colonialism." Public Domain.)

Asian African Conference at Bandung, Indonesia, 1955

Gedung Merdeka, site of the April, 1955 conference on the Indonesian island of Java. Twenty-nine newly independent, post-colonial nations from Africa, the Middle East and South Asia met to discuss racial, economic, and cultural, issues of mutual interest.
The inclusion of China gave Western leaders reason to fear that Communist influence would dominate the conference. This Cold War context threatened to overshadow the regional importance and even agenda of the conference. Nevertheless, the conference voted to condemn colonialism and racialism in all forms, including both Western and Communist.
(Image: Wikipedia/Indonesian public domain.)

Build with Good Bricks

This editorial cartoon from the Chicago Defender, April 16, 1955 applauds the Bandung Conference as an attempt by Asia and Africa to build successful societies without colonial control. Although official and diplomatic sources from the US were silent, there was an outpouring of support for the Asian-African Conference from the black press. The Defender sent White House Correspondent Ethel Payne on an 11 nation Asian and European tour that began with covering the Bandung Conference.


(Image scanned from Library of Congress Microfilm holdings of the Chicago Defender.)

Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.

Agitator, U.S. Congressman, and Pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, Powell was nicknamed "Mr. Civil Rights" during his tenure in the House of Representatives. Powell consistently positioned himself on the vanguard of the Civil Rights movement and rarely missed an opportunity to embarrass his white colleagues by exposing racism and hypocrisy in the most public way possible.
In the 1950's, as foreign relations increasingly became a legitimate means to both ameliorate domestic racism and bolster support for US policies abroad, the Asian African Conference at Bandung seemed the perfect place, to Powell, to address both US race relations and ideology on the same stage. Over State Department objections, Powell attended the conference as a journalist and observer so that a "person of goodwill" from the United States would be present. Powell's staunch defense of the US and his uncharacteristically amiable version of US race relations garnered him as much criticism as it did praise.
(Image is an un-used portrait made for the cover of Time Magazine by Bernard Safran.)

John Foster Dulles or Satchmo?

This Mischa Richter cartoon from the New Yorker depicts a Washington office where apparent foreign policy elites debate. The caption reads, "This is a diplomatic mission of utmost delicacy. The question is, who's the best man for it - John Foster Dulles or Satchmo?" In the 1950's, the State Department began sending African American entertainers, such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Dizzy Gillespie, on goodwill tours through Asia and Africa. Such attempts at cultural exchange were meant to create a positive image of US race relations to contrast with the negative press coming from the Communist press. This cartoon is evidence of both the tours' success, and the degree to which the line between foreign relations and race relations was perforated by the Cold War. (Image source: Library of Congress. Description.)

A partial Internet History of St. Valentine's Day.

Popular myth abounds concerning the origins, meaning, and even timing of St. Valentine's Day. Current American commercial tradition is to buy mass produced, themed greeting cards and gifts to present to your loved one, along with an expensive dinner and audacious bouquet of flowers (garnered at a temporarily inflated price). The story of Valentine's Day goes much further back than the inception of the greeting card industry in 1850 by Esther A. Howland. Another, more evangelical account of the history of valentines day opens questioning whether this version, "expressed in the current celebration of yummy chocolates, lovely cards, and sparkling engagement rings" captures the true meaning of Valentines day. "What is the story behind such a highly-retailed celebration?" With verifiable connections dating almost back to the beginning of our Calendar, perhaps the plural "stories" would be a more apt descriptor.

Some of the more prevalent legends assert that the martyred Roman priest Valentine, executed in the Third Century for performing illegal marriages, sent the first "Valentine" from his prison cell to his beloved. Yet variations on this legend also assert that he performed a miracle on his jailor's blind daughter, who in some variations is also his beloved. Still others assert that Valentine's supporters left him notes in the cracks of his cell, to uplift him in his time of sorrow. Such stories, however, only account for the cultural tradition of exchange, leaving out the spiritual element.

Accounts with more longer view and wider interpretation of the spirit of the holiday include discussions of fertility rite of Lupercalia from the Roman legend of the she-wolf and Romulus and Remus. In a further explanation of the Fifth century Rite, strips of sacrificed goat flesh, dipped in sacrificial blood, were brandished by priests who would "gently slap both women and fields of crops" to ensure fertility. While sacrifices and blood-soaked ceremonies have ceased, historian Jack Oruch asserts that "the idea that Valentine's Day customs perpetuated those of the Roman Lupercalia has been accepted uncritically and repeated, in various forms, up to the present."

Whatever the circumstances of its origin or meaning, Fourteenth Century English bard Geoffery Chaucer seems to get credit for the holiday's saturation with romance for two lines in his 1382 work, Parlement of Foules that celebrate the engagement of England's Richard II to Anne of Bohemia. With this literary precedent, Western and Christian cultures have, to varying degrees, accepted a romantic definition of the holiday.

There are those for whom Valentines Day holds little, no, or negative meaning. For several different reasons, Antivalentinism has become an increasing trend, especially among young singles. Some eschew the holiday because of relationship troubles, or choose to celebrate solitude. For others, disgust of Valentine's Day's gregious capitalistic overtones prefer instead to celebrate St. Skeletor's Day, February 15, to avoid the "corporate whore-fest" of Valentine's Day. Indeed, for many the moniker "Hallmark Holiday" has become a perjorative.


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Reflections on the Open Source history of Valentine's Day.

In all honesty, Wikipedia made this essay fairly easy to write, as it . The point of the exercise, however, was to compare the various sources found in the wild, wild web. The two encyclopedia sites I used, Wikipedia and Infoplease, had by far the most information to offer. Many of the sites I came across were often no more substantial than a conversation overheard in a restaurant at happy hour; sometimes less so.

Substantial or no, the variant explanations and characterizations of a single holiday are as astounding as they are plentiful. It reminds me very much of the old argument concerning the tales of the Brothers Grimm. At its kernel, the story told and lessons imparted are fairly universal, but details as much as motivation vary greatly in the telling, and depend very much on time and location. Versions of the Grimm tales from Medieval Europe are replete with gruesome details and sometimes violence, but underneath lies the moral of the story. Much like the differences in origin, meaning, and even celebration of Valentine's Day perhaps matter less than the ceremony of showing affection for loved ones, praying for fertility, or otherwise greeting the Spring with endearing thoughts.