Picturing a Biographical Essay

Pictures help visualize places, events, people, and ideas. In a biographical essay, the investigated person's family photographs, stills from home movies, and pictures of belongings validate that the individual really lived while adding information about the way that he or she looked and dressed. Sometimes, as in the case of Alonzo Bump, family photographs are not available. Instead of personal objects, an essayist may consider looking for images of the subject's surroundings. Are there era pictures of the person's place of work, residence, and home town? If not, does the building where the individual worked or lived still exist for a modern day photograph?

In the Alonzo Bump essay, a sketch of his employer, Saratoga Manufacturing, from about 1880, was found. The building likely looked very similar in 1862. For Harmony Mills, Alonzo's employer in Cohoes, a modern picture was chosen with the factory's decayed bricks and untended yard adding the texture of great age to a once vital plant.

Era photographs of general themes within an essay also help enliven content. Relative to the nineteenth century, the Mathew Brady Collection at the Smithonian Instituion Library offers over a thousand photographs of the Civil War ranging from scenes of battlefield death to military camp life. Other nineteenth century artists photographed, painted, or sketched western life, the Erie Canal, the Hudson Valley, victorian values, and the changing immigrant landscape.

Directions:
Provided on the next page are a series of about thirty-five photographs and sketches largely from the Civil War era on Microsoft Word documents. Select the documents which you feel are appropriate for the paragraphs in your A. S.

Saratoga Manufacturing Company
Victory Mills, New York, approx. 1880