Letter to the editor.
Ross, Campbell A.
Without intending a pun, the cover photograph of the Winter 2009
volume of Alberta History was extremely arresting. The editorial
instinct that caused you to select that illustration from the several
that accompanied the article on" Child Saving in the City of
Calgary" was excellent. Without alleging that the following
thoughts were consciously in your mind, I believe this photograph can be
used as a case study in the value of 'deconstructing'
historical photographs in revealing problematic elements in our accounts
of the past.
The article itself is an admirable administrative history of the
succession of voluntary and governmental efforts to respond to the
situation of neglected and delinquent children. The author's career
in active social work and his specialized knowledge of statutes
affecting child welfare provide a clear account of individuals and
groups in charge of such work in Calgary.
On the other hand, the top-down perspective on
'child-saving' makes one wonder if these efforts might appear
less disinterested when viewed from other perspectives, particularly
when these might have been revealed accidentally in documents selected
by the agents themselves to represent their work.
Thus we come to the photograph, appearing in the article and
selected for the volume cover, "A probation officer conducts a
runaway girl to detention quarters in the basement of the Calgary police
building about 1959." The photograph is clearly posed and intended
to represent the work of 'child saving'. What are some of the
unspoken yet powerful messages one might suggest?
1. It is not only that the officer is Caucasian and the detainee
aboriginal, but that the two are clearly separated by class--the smart
suit, the handbag, above all the white gloves of the officer evoke the
middle class dress advertisements in newspapers in the 50s. Whereas the
footwear, pants, and shirt of the detainee are all casual wear.
2. Is there significance?--I think there is--that the officer has
removed one glove to grasp her handbag, but retained it to lay hand on
the detainee.
3. Does the pose and expression of the officer, a mixture of
sadness and determination, mirror the emotional and mental state of
those who feel they are right in correcting others and directing them
for their own good, a kind of domestic 'white man's
burden'?
4. Does the pose itself remind anyone else of Renaissance and
Baroque images of Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, an idea that might
have been reinforced if the bar on the right summarizing the articles
within had been removed so as to the reveal the dark door into which the
child is being led away from the light?
5. What instinct caused you to choose blue/black duotone to
represent the photograph on the cover, conveying coldness, sorrow, and
despair?
Is this all psychobabble? Perhaps, but clearly I think not. I
believe the deconstruction of this photograph suggests that the
'child-saving' service was only partly for the good of the
detainee and was more urgently about the need to isolate the detainee
and the detainee's ilk from the proper sort of people. People (and
I do not exclude myself in my less noble moments) who need the services
of such self-sacrificing officers to protect them from the threatening
'strangers' (by skin, by class) in their midst.
Campbell A. Ross Ph.D
