Scholarly Engagement Site Visit

Kelly Miller (University of Virginia Harrison Institute) and Tim Stinson (North Carolina State University) spent the day on October 29 in a Scholarly Engagement Site Visit. They were investigating past and prospective interactions with our Moving Images of Work Life cataloging project and broader issues. Conversations with scholars included Martin Johnson, NYU Cinema Studies, Karen Alexander and Bill Leavenworth, University of New Hampshire fisheries historians, and Martha McNamara, Wellesley College Art and Architecture.

Katrina Dixon, media cataloger, here on the left next to Bill Leavenworth, Karen Wyatt, media cataloging assistant, and other Northeast Historic Film staff members participated in the morning discussion and facilities tour led by Gemma Perretta.

The chief topic was how our moving image materials are used and their value to researchers, teachers, public programmers, and the public. Alexander and Leavenworth have been working with primary source materials relating to 17th century fisheries and are moving into the modern period looking at documentation of coastal fisheries. The film record provides evidence relating to forage fish, clupeidae such as Atlantic herring.

Martin Johnson and Martha McNamara underlined their challenges in finding film for their work. "Moving images gave not been given the scholarly attention they deserve. This project will enable people like me to use them for teaching and other activities," said McNamara, who joined us on the phone from Wellesley College. Her spring seminar for art historians, "New England Arts and Architecture," will use our 1916 Provincetown travelogue. Besides the plein air painting class, the importance of the film is how New England is represented as a land time has forgotten, a backwater--to discuss in learning more about such image creation and the image creators.

Our thanks to Karen Alexander, Martin Johnson, Bill Leavenworth, and Martha McNamara for their knowledge, skills, imagination, energy, and time.