dead fred

tonight in class, we had someone come and talk to us about genealogy research. she gave us a lot of information (most of which i’ll likely forget, except for the overarching theme of “look beyond just your family name!”), but my favorite piece was probably the website deadfred.com. it’s a website where people post old photos and other readers see if they can identify the person photographed. (i.e. “that’s my great uncle ralph!). the example photo she showed us was of a man named james gorman and of another, unidentified man. mr. gorman is a white railroad laborer and he is photographed standing behind a seated black man playing a guitar. although it is a typical, posed 1920’s photo, the characters seem much more lively than the usual straight-faced crowd that usually populates the photo records of this era. plus, what an unusual pairing of men for a photo like this! it just seems to sparkle and their slight smiles make me want to smile back.