RESEARCH REPORT

Introduction

The study of history calls for the gathering of alternative historical sources for they deepen and broaden such study. This is recognized especially now that the study of Philippine history seeks to articulate the discourse 'of the other whose story remains unarticulated. Alternative sources can help articulate the history of the lived lives of those who suffered history without leaving written documents of their lives. This becomes even more pointed as historians begin to reflect not only on the events of colonization but also on the changing ethos and worldviews of both colonized and coloniser.

In the study of the American colonial period in the Philippines, covering roughly the turn of the 20th century to the 1940s, an untapped source of historical materials is the photographs taken by private individuals, Government institutions, and postcard companies. All these photographs contain images of peoples, landscapes, and events that defined life in the newly acquired islands of the United States. With the curious eyes of newcomers at colonization, Americans took or purchased photographs of almost everything, from tribal people to ships moored in harbors. This was most evident in the period from the turn of the 20th century to the 1920s. This research project aimed to catalogue all available photographs during this period.

We must be careful, however, in viewing these photographs. They are not simply records of life that is passing. Photographs are often thought of as merely pure representations of the places they depict. But the photograph speaks not only of its subject but also of how the people who chose and pictured the subject wanted to represent that world. The photographs from the American times are not simple depictions of the world before the war. They are pictures of the Philippines according to how the Americans viewed it. Often we would see a world of people that is interesting and qi4aint, worthy of curiosity but not worthy of being accorded the respect of an equal. This is the world of the little brown brother, of a strange dark race that needed civilizing the American way.

Rather than taking these images too literally, we should look at the pictures in terms of who the Filipinos really were at that time: a people with their own culture and lifeways, not mere curiosities but persons who had created a life for themselves in a land that was their own. Unaware of what they were doing, those who wished to render the Filipinos their little brown brothers chronicled the life and times of a people far different from their own conceptions. We should then use these photographs to meet the people that stood face-to-face with the camera.

The objective of this research project was to locate and catalogue all existing historical photographs from the turn of the 20th century to the 1920s as a necessary step toward making these photographs available to scholars and researchers.