Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T05:38:22.524Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Photographic Memory, Ageing and the Life Course

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 November 2008

Andrew Blaikie
Andrew Blaikie
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, University of Aberdeen, Edward Wright Building, Dunbar Street, Old Aberdeen AB9 2TY, Scotland.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Although photographs are frequently used to illustrate discussions about ageing they have not been assessed critically as gerontological sources. This paper argues that the pictorial record since the 1840s contains many problems and possibilities. A case study of Victorian Scotland indicates the methodological pitfalls of acknowledging images at face value. Uncritical acceptance of the assumptions of modernisation theory has underlain much of the received wisdom on ageing in former times. More generally, both academics and advocates in Postwar Britain have reworked stereotypes of old age to suit their own aims. Against this, the convergence of reminiscence and a willingness to develop more interactive approaches to understanding the life course allows photographs to provide a resource for interpreting the ageing self. Nevertheless, as the examples show, difficulties again arise as the ambiguity and malleability of images all too easily enables generalised fictions to shroud the diversity of individual experience.

Keywords

PhotographymodernisationmethodologyVictorian Scotlandtwentieth-century Britainreminiscence.
Type
Research Article
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 14 , Issue 4 , December 1994 , pp. 479 - 497
Copyright
Copyright Cambridge University Press 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

NOTES

1 Harvey, P. (ed.) The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 3rd edn., Oxford U.P., Oxford, 1946, p. 641Google Scholar, discussing À la recherche du temps perdu. Parts of this paper were presented to an international seminar on Images of Aging held in Sierre, Switzerland in July 1993. I should like to record my thanks to Tamara Hareven and Mike Hepworth for their comments. An earlier conference, unrelated but with the same title, was held in Luxembourg in June 1991. I am especially indebted to Andrew Achenbaum for his remarks on that occasion, and subsequently on an earlier draft of the current paper. I am also grateful to an anonymous referee for further critical insights. The Universities of Geneva and Clark, respectively, provided funds to attend these meetings. Chris Waters's presentations on collective memory (at the Thomas Reid Institute for Cultural Studies in Aberdeen) lent further inspiration.

2 Woodward, K.Aging and Its Discontents: Freud and Other Fictions. Indiana U.P., Bloomington, 1991Google Scholar (which begins with a discussion of the responses of academic conference-goers to an exhibition shot of an elderly man); Sohngen, M. and Smith, R. J.Images of Old Age in Poetry. The Gerontologist, 18 (1978), 181–86CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Kelley, C. E. Ageism in Popular Song: a Rhetorical Analysis of American Popular Song Lyrics, 1964–1973. Ph.D, University of Oregon, 1982.Google Scholar

3 Featherstone, M. and Hepworth, M. Changing Images of Retirement: An Analysis of Representation of Ageing in the Popular Magazine Retirement Choice. In Bromley, D. B. (ed.) Gerontology: Social and Behavioural Perspectives. BSG/Croom Helm, London, 1984, 219–24Google Scholar; Gantz, W., Gartenber, H. M. and Rainbow, C. K.Approaching Invisibility: the Portrayal of the Elderly in Magazine Advertisements. Journal of Communication, 30 (1980), 56–60CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Range, J. and Vinovskis, M. A.Images of Elderly in Popular Magazines: a Content Analysis of Litlell's Living Age, 1945–1982. Social Science History, 5 (1981), 123–70Google Scholar; Wass, H. et al. The Elderly in Sunday Papers, 1963–1983. Educational Gerontology, 11 (1985), 29–39; 569–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Dillon, K. M. and Jones, B. S.Attitudes Toward Aging Portrayed in Birthday Cards. International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 13, 1 (1981), 79–84.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

4 Dail, P. W.Prime-time Television Portrayals of Older Adults in the Context of Family Life. The Gerontologist, 28 (1988), 700–706CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Davis, R. H. and TV's, J. A. Image of the Elderly: A Practical Guide for Change. Lexington Books, Lexington, MA, 1985Google Scholar; Elliot, J. C.The Daytime Television Portrayal of Older Adults. The Gerontologist, 24 (1984), 628–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Petersen, M.The Visibility and Image of Older People on Television. Journalism Quarterly, 50 (1973), 569–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stoddard, K.Saints and Shrews: Women and Aging in American Popular Film. Greenwood Press, Wesport, Conn., 1983.Google Scholar

5 Although see: Rodwell, G. et al. Images of Old Age on British Television. Generations Review, 2, 3 (09 1992), 6–8Google Scholar, and research referred to therein.

6 Harvey, D.The Condition of Postmodernity. Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1989, pp. 312–13.Google Scholar

7 Jordanova, L.Medicine and Visual Culture, Social History of Medicine, 3, 1 (04 1990), 88–99.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

8 Durie, A.Tourism and Commercial Photography in Victorian Scotland: the Rise and Fall of G. W. Wilson & Co., 1852–1908, Nothern Scotland, 12 (1992), 89–104 (p. 99)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Smart, R.‘Famous Throughout the World’: Valentine and Sons Ltd., Dundee. Review of Scottish Culture, 4 (1988), 75–87.Google Scholar

9 Stevenson, S. Photography. In Scott, P. H. (ed.) Scotland: A Concise Cultural History. Mainstream, Edinburgh and London, 1993, 253–66Google Scholar, notes that ‘both scientifically and artistically Scotland made an outstanding contribution to the development of this new medium’ (p. 253). Annan, Valentine and Washington Wilson each established their businesses during the 1850s.

10 Durie, , op. cit., p. 100Google Scholar. Of the major professional photographers in Scotland, only Thomas Annan, who captured the dereliction and filth of old Glasgow closes immediately before the Corporation demolished and rebuilt them could be said to have been spurred by an impulse for social realism.

11 Stevenson, S.David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson: Catalogue of their Calotypes Taken Between 1843 and 1847 in the Collection of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1981, p. 150.Google Scholar

12 Hannavy, J.A Moment in Time: Scottish Contributions to Photography, 1840–1920. Third Eye/Interbook Media Services, Glasgow, 1983, p. 6Google Scholar; Anderson, M. and Morse, D. The People. In Fraser, W. H. and Morris, R. J. (eds.) People and Society in Scotland, Vol. 2, 1830–1914. John Donald, Edinburgh, 1990, 8–45 (p. 16).Google Scholar

13 Kinnes, S.Private Collection. Photography: Edinburgh International Festival Study Guide. Scotland on Sunday, 27 06 1993, p. 13.Google Scholar

14 Samuel, R.The ‘Eye’ of History. New Statesman and Society, 18 12 1992–1 01 1993, 38–41Google Scholar

15 Cowgill, D. O. and Holmes, D. (eds.) Aging and Modernization. Appleton-Century-Crofts, New York, 1972Google Scholar; Fennell, G., Phillipson, C. and Evers, H.The Sociology of Old Age. Open University Press, Milton Keynes, 1988, p. 28.Google Scholar

16 Goode, W.World Revolution and Family Patterns (Free Press of Glencoe, New York, 1963).Google Scholar

17 Samuel, , op. cit. p. 40.Google Scholar

18 Ibid.

19 Carter, I.Kailyard: The Literature of Decline in Nineteenth Century Scotland. Scottish Journal of Sociology, 1, 1 (11 1976), 1–13 (p. 5).Google Scholar

20 Durie, , op. cit. 100Google Scholar. (Unlike today's ‘heritage experiences’ where redundant miners dress up to guide the public around mining museums, these women were still working in fishing.)

21 Thompson, P. with Wailey, T. and Lummis, T.Living the Fishing. RKP, London, 1983Google Scholar. Around 1900, Valentine's published a photograph captioned ‘Four Generations of Newhaven Fishwives’.

22 Hockey, J. and James, A.Growing Up and Growing Old. Sage, London. 1993, pp. 18–21.Google Scholar

23 Much may be read into the picture, nevertheless. Ken Morrice's poem ‘Old Photograph: Fisherman and Wife’, opens with the line ‘These salt-hard hands gave few caresses’ (see Scott, A. (ed.) Voices of Our Kind. 3rd. edn., Chambers, Edinburgh, 1987, 108–9).Google Scholar

24 Gray, J. and Tocher, J. F.The Ethnology of Buchan. Pt. III: The Physical Characteristics of Adults and School Children in East Aberdeenshire. Trans. Buchan Field Club, 6 (1901), 37–63.Google Scholar

25 Pollock, G. and Orton, F.Vincent Van Gogh: Artist of his Time. Phaidon, Oxford, 1978.Google Scholar

26 Stevenson, , op. cit. 262.Google Scholar

27 Lange did not identify this woman in a labour camp by name. I am indebted to an anonymous reviewer for pointing this out as an example that raises one of the ethical and legal issues behind the use of photographs. Who owns the images and who ought to benefit from their reproduction? Should standards of informed consent be applied?

28 Samuel, , op. cit.Google Scholar Between the 1800s and 1920s both technological innovations and fresh professional conventions came to dominate ‘realistic’ and ‘surrealistic’ imagery, not least in France where the work of Atget is particularly significant. Although space precludes consideration of such major developments, they necessarily obtrude upon any agenda for detailed historical research.

29 Samuel, , op. cit. 41.Google Scholar

30 Agee, J. and Evans, W.Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1980Google Scholar; Amérique: les Années Noires: Farm Security Administration, 1935–1942. Centre National de la Photographic, Paris, 1983.Google Scholar

31 Party, Liberal, The Aged and the Nation. Liberal Party, London, 1948.Google Scholar

32 See Blaikie, A. and Macnicol, J. Towards an Anatomy of Ageism: Society, Social Policy and the Elderly Between the Wars. In Phillipson, C., Bernard, M. and Strang, P. (eds.) Dependency and Interdependency in Old Age: Theoretical Perspectives and Policy Alternatives. Groom Helm, London. 1986, 95–104.Google Scholar

33 The cover picture of Young, and Willmott's, Family and Kinship in East London. Pelican, Harmondsworth, 1962Google Scholar depicts a happy grandfather smiling wildly to catch the eye of a baby cradled by his daughter (or a friend) – clearly a source of intergenerational cheer – while his wife chats animatedly with the younger women. On the ‘pornography’ of deep old age see Blaikie, A.Images of Age: A Reflexive Process. Applied Ergonomics, 24, 1 (1993), 51–7.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

34 Edey, M.Great Photographic Essays from LIFE. New York Graphic Society, Boston, 1978, p. 4Google Scholar. Presumably the Magnum agency's Generation X project, through which Capa, Bischof and other photojournalistic luminaries attempted to capture images from the lives of postwar youth in different countries, falls into this category.

35 Fennell, et al. , op. cit., 8–10Google Scholar, illustrate the point using the cover photograph from Marris, P.Loss and Change (RKP, London, 1974)Google Scholar where, ‘an elderly person is depicted as an urban waif, lost in a concrete jungle she never made’ (p. 8).

36 cf. Naked Age. Observer Magazine, 18 10 1992, 42–8Google Scholar, on Cotier, J.Nudes in Budapest. Aktok, Budapest, 1992Google Scholar; Twelve Faces of Age calendar. Inquit, London, 1994.Google Scholar

37 Dalrymple, J.Dietrich: the Last Take. Sunday Times, 10 05 1992, 11.Google Scholar

38 Ariès, P.Centuries of Childhood. Jonathan Cape, London, 1962Google Scholar; Wilson, A.The Infancy of the History of Childhood: An Appraisal of Philippe Ariès. History and Theory, 19, 2 (1980), 133–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39 Ariès, P.Western Attitudes Toward Death: From the Middle Ages to the Present. Johns Hopkins U.P., Baltimore, 1974Google Scholar; Walter, T.Modern Death: Taboo or not Taboo. Sociology, 25, 2 (05 1991), 293–310CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Minois, G.History of Old Age: From Antiquity to the Renaissance. Polity, Oxford, 1989.Google Scholar

40 Fischer, D. H.Growing Old in America. Oxford U.P., New York, 1977Google Scholar; Stone, L.Walking Over Grandma. New York Review of Books, 12 05 1977Google Scholar; Achenbaum, W. A.Old Age in the New Land: The American Experience since 1790. Johns Hopkins U.P., Baltimore, 1978.Google Scholar

41 See Ageing and Society, 4, 4 (12 1984) Special Issue on History and Ageing.Google Scholar

42 Quadagno, J.Aging in Early Industrial Society: Work, Family and Social Policy in Nineteenth-Century England. Academic Press, London, 1982, 202–4.Google Scholar

43 Fischer, , op. cit.Google Scholar

44 Tamke, S. S. Human Values and Aging: the Perspective of the Victorian Nursery, cited in Featherstone, M. and Hepworth, M. Images of Ageing, in Bond, J. and Coleman, P. (eds.) Ageing in Society: An Introduction to Social Gerontology. BSG/Sage, London, 1990, 250–75 (pp. 264–5).Google Scholar

45 Nuttall, J.King Twist, RKP, London, 1978.Google Scholar

46 See Nahemow, L., McCluskey, K. A. and McGhee, P. E. (eds). Humor and Aging. Academic Press, Orlando, 1986Google Scholar, and Blaikie, and Macnicol, , op. cit.Google Scholar for analysis of the vocabulary of cartoons.

47 Achenbaum, W. A. and Kusnerz, P. A.Images of Old Age in America: 1790 to the Present. Institute of Gerontology, Ann Arbor, MI, 1978.Google Scholar

48 Achenbaum, W. A.Images of Old Age in America, 1790 to the Present: After a Second Look. Paper prepared for working conference on Images of Aging, Luxembourg, June 1991.Google Scholar

49 Sontag, S.On Photography. Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1979Google Scholar; Sontag, S.The Double Standard of Aging. Saturday Review, 23 09 1972, 29–38.Google Scholar

50 Blaikie, A.The Emerging Political Power of the Elderly in Britain, 1908–1948. Ageing and Society, 10, 1 (03 1990), 17–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

51 Coleman, P. G.Ageing and Reminiscence Processes: Social and Clinical Implications. Wiley, Chichester, 1986.Google Scholar

52 Coward, R. The Mirror with a Memory, in Female Desire: Women's Sexuality Today. Paladin, London, 1984, 47–54.Google Scholar

53 Coward, , op. cit., 53–4.Google Scholar

54 Mulvey, L.Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. Screen, 16, 3 (1975), 6–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lasch, C.The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations. W. W. Norton, London, 1991.Google Scholar

55 Oberg, P. and Ruth, J.-E. Ways of Life: Old Age in a Life History Perspective. In Kenyon, G. M. et al. (eds.) Biography and Aging: Explorations in Adult Development. Springer, New York (forthcoming)Google Scholar. I am grateful to Hans-Dieter Schneider for the suggestion that the psychological need for an harmonious ‘good gestalt’ in later life might underlie the glorification of one's past.

56 Benjamin, M.Picturing the Silences. New Statesman and Society, 25 06 1993, 32–3.Google Scholar

57 Steedman, C.Landscape for a Good Woman: A Story of Two Lives. Virago, London, 1986, 132.Google Scholar

58 de Beauvoir, S.A Very Easy Death. Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1969.Google Scholar

59 Berger, J. and Mohr, J.Another Way of Telling. Readers and Writers, London, 1982, 133–4.Google Scholar

60 Hareven, T.Family Time and Historical Time. Daedalus, 106, 2 (Spring 1977), 57–70Google Scholar; The History of the Family and the Complexity of Social Change. American Historical Review, 96, 1 (1991), 95–124.Google Scholar

61 See, for example, Bytheway, B., Keil, T., Allan, P. and Bryman, A. (eds.) Becoming and Being Old: Sociological Approaches to Later Life. Sage, London, 1989Google Scholar; Blaikie, A.Whither the Third Age?: Implications for Gerontology. Generations Review, 2, 1 (03 1992), 2–4.Google Scholar

62 Halbwachs, M. The Social Frameworks of Memory (1925). In Coser, L. A. (ed.), On Collective Memory. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1992.Google Scholar

63 Coward, , op. cit., 50.Google Scholar

64 Geertz, C.Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology. Fontana, London, 1993.Google Scholar

65 Samuel, , op. cit., 41.Google Scholar