This Is Part of the Crowd That Assembled on Seventeenth Street in the Union Square Area of New York Last Night… 19 - 1953

Editor: We're looking at an anonymous gelatin silver print from 1953, titled "This Is Part of the Crowd That Assembled on Seventeenth Street in the Union Square Area of New York Last Night…". The mass of faces is overwhelming. What details jump out at you? Curator: Well, consider the production of this image. Gelatin silver prints were a common, almost democratic medium then. Look at the way it documents a crowd, presumably a protest given the signs. To me, the value lies in how it represents collective action and social movements of the era through readily available material. How accessible would image-making have been for the individuals within that crowd, I wonder? Editor: That's an interesting angle! So you're seeing the materiality of the photograph as directly connected to the accessibility of protest? Curator: Precisely. This wasn't some rarefied oil painting for the elite. Photography provided a means for capturing and disseminating these images of labor and collective effort; it became an inherent element in documenting the activity, capturing these specific individuals in this specific context of 1950s New York. Consider, for example, the physical labor involved in creating and carrying the protest signs – ‘We are innocent' seems to be what they state. This adds layers to our understanding. Editor: It makes me consider the labour involved, not only of the physical march, but of sign-making, and photographic printing. I hadn’t considered it in those terms. Thank you! Curator: The interweaving of social narrative and mode of representation, for me, defines this photograph. I find it intriguing.