Visit 3

I went to the archive yesterday morning and was able to get through entire box of photographs from the Small Photographic Collections. There were many photos taken after the Spanish Civil War and many of unidentified figures. But still, I was able to see pictures of soldiers on break, soldiers in combat, and portraits of well-known people like Largo Caballergo, Dolores Ibarruri, and Miguel de Unamuno.

A series of photos that I found very interesting and that I would like to find more about each had been named "To Die in Madrid" Publicity Photo. This series showed different well-known people as well as soldiers in action. I took snapshots of them with my webcam on my macbook. These photos were the most interesting in the folder, in my opinion. I wish I knew their purpose.

One thing I noticed in a lot of the pictures is the presence of women. At a time when Italy and Germany were trying to turn back the clock on women and force them back into traditional gender roles separate fro

m men, women in Republican Spain were always present among the men, helping actively in whatever way they could.

Another thing I noticed in the photos was how many shots were taken of veterans going back to Spain. The images convey a mix of wonder and solemnity. They show the great extent to which the Spanish Civil War must have impacted the veterans' lives.

I looked at two photos from a "Veteran's Return" in NYC. I wonder how much Americans knew about the Spanish Civil War and to what extent the veterans were honored upon their return.

Although some of the photos were very interesting I still felt lost most of the time because I didn't know the significance of a lot of what I was looking at. But maybe the significance of everything was mixed.