Old photographs

The problem with historical photographs is that anything in sepia-tint or black-and-white acquires an otherworldly aura. We know that women joined the domestic workforce during World War II, worked in factories and repaired airplanes. But these events appear, to me at least, to be a myth we tell each other. Rosie the Riveter flexes her biceps for a few moments until we turn the page and see her baking a casserole; the inevitable progression of a story that lost all suspense a long time ago.

And then I came across a couple of photographs from the 1940s that have been restored to near true color and I see those women as more than monochrome relics; I can see them as actual people who could be in the lab next door, elbow deep in a jet engine, and I think, "Wow, she's cool. I should meet her," before I remember that she's long gone and sixty years later we still don't know where she is.

Old photographs

The problem with historical photographs is that anything in sepia-tint or black-and-white acquires an otherworldly aura. We know that women joined the domestic workforce during World War II, worked in factories and repaired airplanes. But these events appear, to me at least, to be a myth we tell each other. Rosie the Riveter flexes her biceps for a few moments until we turn the page and see her baking a casserole; the inevitable progression of a story that lost all suspense a long time ago.

And then I came across a couple of photographs from the 1940s that have been restored to near true color and I see those women as more than monochrome relics; I can see them as actual people who could be in the lab next door, elbow deep in a jet engine, and I think, "Wow, she's cool. I should meet her," before I remember that she's long gone and sixty years later we still don't know where she is.