How do archives function as repositories of knowledge?
Archives preserve information from around the globe, like records of an individual’s personal life, and keep it safe for generations. They come in all sorts of forms from government documents to letters and paintings. Archives are very important because they usually hold a lot of important information about a certain culture which helps historians and helps us remember where we came from. In this essay I will be mostly talking about photo-archives, which are records of time in the form of photographs, as well as the Societe Jersiaise Photographic Archive. I’ll also talk about to what extent archives function as repositories of knowledge, which refers to the way the data is kept and organised in order to be used by more people.
Believe it or not, we all have our own private photo-archives because of our mobile phones and family albums, birth certificates etc. The camera roll in our phones can keep safe thousands of images taken all around the world and in different years. Everyday people take hundreds of images without realising they’re creating an archive of moments frozen in time. When we decide to post those images on social media platform, we also create another archive as those pictures are now displayed elsewhere and preserved.
Societe Jersiaise, also known as the ‘Jersey Society’, was formed in 1873 by a small group of islanders that were interested in the island, the number then grew as more people became aware of this group. Their aim was to create a museum and a library, but at their second Annual Repost their attention was drawn to the importance of ‘Recording in permanent photography local prehistoric monuments, buildings and ruins’, this was because at the time photography had become quite a popular medium. The practice and collecting of photography became one of their priorities and that’s when they started putting photographs in the museum and library, which led to the photographic archive we have today. The photographic archive has now of over 125,000 images dating back to mid-1840s to the present day; 30,000 of these archives are available online on their website for people to see and purchase. The Island of Jersey has rich history of photographic practice as a territory geographically and culturally positioned between Britain and France, two nations that were prominent in the development the medium of photography. The society also has a library which gives access to the people living on the island to learn more about Jersey history, identity and geography. This library is a good tool for islander and visitors from across the world to learn more about Jersey culture and even their own heritage as these archives tend to have Jersey family trees as well.
Henry Mullins (1818-1880) is a very important Jersey photographer from the mid-nineteenth century. He is most known for producing thousands of portrait photographs of the Jersey islanders between 1848 and 1873 at his highly successful studio that was located in the Royal Square, St. Helier. Before arriving to the Channel Islands, Mullins was part of the circle of pioneers at the Royal Polytechnic Institute in London where the first photographic studio in Europe was opened in 1841. In the summer of 1847 Mullins arrived in Guernsey and a year later he settled in Jersey where he stayed until the end of his life. Many photographic studios had opened in the 50s and 60s, but Mullins continued to be the photographer of choice for members of the Jersey Society and local and immigrant families. This shows that his work was really good at his job and that he is a very important individual when it comes to Jersey history and the archives of the island. Today there are 9,861 images Henry Mullins has taken in jersey that are available to view online on the Societe Jersiaise website.
A technique he used to use is called the “multi-portrait” and it’s where he would use 4 different portraits and arrange them almost in the shape of a diamond. This image shows the same woman being photographed from 4 different angles. The top image is her looking straight at the camera, on the left you see her facing left just like how on the right she seen to be looking to the right, then the bottom image is her looking left again but her head is not as tilted as in the other images, and you can see both sides of her face.
In conclusion, I think archives, especially photo archives, are really helpful to make us understand more about the island’s culture and history. Photographs are very helpful because they allow us to clearly see what was happening at the time and compare different time periods with each other. The way they are stored, e.g. public libraries, makes them very accessible to everyone who wants to gain more knowledge an understanding of a specific time period and culture. I think the archives will help me with my own work as I will be able to visibly see more about the islands heritage and learn about how people used to live at the time. The Jersey archives are also really good at showing us the islands geology and geography which works well with our current project called “My Rock”.
Sources:
Yasmin, a well constructed essay, that clearly demonstrates that you have researched, read and thought about the essay question and the function of the archive in general. Good use of illustrations and examples to extend knowledge and understanding in selecting key images by photographer Henry Mullins, that have been analysed using both contextual and personal references. More analysis of Henry Mullins extraordinary archive of almost 10.000 carte de visite portraits of Jersey’s middle and upper classes exists in ED.EM.03. that Patrick and I published last year, which has an excellent short essay written by Gareth Syvret, former photo-archivist at SJ
https://www.edem.je/shop/p/ed-em-03
For your Personal Study, consider how images or specific collections from the historical photo-archive at Societe Jersiaise may help to develop your project. Maybe a series of portraits of Romanians living in Jersey?
12/18 = B grade
Good effort – keep going!