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Picturing the Everyday Life of Limburg Miners: Photographs as a Historical Source

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 July 2008

Joeri Januarius
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Abstract

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Although recent years have seen growing theoretical interest among historians in the use of visual material, researchers continue to neglect the importance of photographs as source material. This is particularly striking since, now that iconographic material is becoming more widely available and archival institutions are beginning to place greater emphasis on visual material as use of the simple camera becomes more widespread, photographs often provide the only source of essential information for study. They illuminate the concept of the everyday, which in turn casts light on the significance of consumer goods, domestic comfort, the aspirations of men, women, and children, in short the banality of everyday life which echoed their mentalities and how they viewed the world.

Type
SURVEY
Information
International Review of Social History , Volume 53 , Issue 2 , August 2008 , pp. 293 - 312
Copyright
2008 Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis

Footnotes

This article is a revised version of a piece published earlier in the journal, Brood en Rozen. See Joeri Januarius, “Foto's met autoriteit. Alledaagsheid in het leven van Limburgse mijnwerkers in de jaren 50”, Brood en Rozen, 12 (2007), pp. 5–25. I am indebted to Paule Verbruggen (AMSAB-Archief en Museum van de Socialistische Arbeidersbeweging in Ghent), Filip Delarbre (Archief Vlaams Mijnmuseum in Beringen), and Jan Kohlbacher (Stichting Eisdens Erfgoed in Eisden) for their assistance. I would also like to thank Prof. Peter Scholliers (Vrije Universiteit Brussels), Prof. Patricia Van den Eeckhout (Vrije Universiteit Brussels), Bart Delbroek (Vrije Universiteit Brussels), Nelleke Teughels (Vrije Universiteit Brussels), an anonymous reviewer for this journal, and Martine Maris for their useful criticisms and remarks on earlier versions of the manuscript. The translation is by Chris Gordon.