Graduate students explore underground archive through ‘Picturing Black History’ book project

Graduate students explore underground archive through 'Picturing Black History' book project

Ohio State facilitated opportunity with Getty Images

In a Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania, limestone mine, 220 feet underground, you can find the Bettmann Archive, a cache of 11 million photographs and film negatives featuring images of Albert Einstein, the Hindenburg explosion and the Apollo 11 moon landing, among many others. Getty Images acquired the collection in 2016.

The limestone mine is a perfect place to house such an important resource. It is temperature- and humidity-controlled and is kept under tight security. Visitors are searched before they enter, as are their vehicles and belongings. Advanced preservation methods allow the materials held inside to be viewed by present and, the hope is, future generations.

Picturing Black History uses images from the Bettmann Archive to tell previously untold stories from the lives of Black people, said Nicholas Breyfogle, one of the book's editors and a history professor at The Ohio State University. The book was published this month.

"We were able to embrace the power of images to really be able to capture stories from Black history," he said. "We live in a very visual world. [We] use these images to tell the stories of everything from oppression and resistance to perseverance, resilience and joy, to everyday life and political moments ... to bring all of that out of the archives, into the world."

Breyfogle is joined in the editor role by Steven Conn, a history professor at Miami University. Breyfogle and Conn edit Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspectives. After the civil unrest in 2020, Getty Images approached Ohio State and Miami about using their historic images to better understand racial injustice in the United States. So far, this collaboration has created the book and a Picturing Black History website.

Also serving as editors are two Ohio State doctoral students: Daniela Edmeier and Damarius Johnson. For them, the book was a special opportunity.

"I feel like the chance to work on something like this, as a graduate student, is unheard of," Edmeier said. "As grad students, especially as historians, we're deep in the archives. It's easy to be in your insular little bubble, so to be working on a project that's so forward facing, that's collaborating with an organization like Getty, I don't think I've ever had an opportunity like this."

Johnson was struck by how valued his and Edmeier's input was.

"The reception we've had from the larger team is important. Conversations could be had between the folks who started the project," he said. "Graduate students having this much input is awesome. There was a baseline principle that we work as a team and have input from the team in equal balance."

Having the chance to go down to the Bettmann Archive was remarkable, they agreed.

"Even entering the mine (that houses the archive), you're going through extreme security," Edmeier said. "You're brought in on a golf cart, you're going literally into a hollowed-out mountain, it's dark and cold. You see other areas for this branch of the military or that organization. We're in the epicenter of valuable information, a collection of American history that most people aren't even aware exists, much less have the opportunity to physically enter."

Having access to images and being able to discuss them on-site was invaluable, Johnson said.

"There are thousands of images we looked at. We're having conversations back and forth about these images, in this mine. We're thinking about how they'll fit within the structure of the book," he said. "Our table of contents was set; we knew who the contributors would be and we needed supplementary images. So, there was a lot of conversation, even in the mine."

In addition to research experience, Breyfogle said, graduate students get valuable career training.

"These are a set of skills that are essential as one goes off into the job market," he said. "Editing, budget management, engaging with the larger public on a topic, teaching the broader public. It's a way to train a whole series of skills and opportunities that most graduate students don't have."

Proceeds from book sales will support more opportunities for work, research, and education in Black history, he said.

"We've designed it to be self-sustaining," he said. "We're not doing this because we want to get rich. We're doing this because it's the right thing to do and because it's going to help us do these kinds of projects with graduate students moving forward."

More Ohio State News