Presentations of Family in Private Photography. German-Americans in the USA during the first half of the 20th century

• Applicant: Dr. Petra Götte
• Subject Area: General Education and History of Education
• Term: from 2009 to 2014
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 155080646

The project deals with German-American families in the USA during the first half of the 20th century. The study is a casestudy focussing on the Krueger Family, a family that immigrated to Wisconsin from Pommeria in 1851. With this topic the project is located in the history of education and the history of migration. There are roughly 800 family photographs that were taken in the years of 1899 until 1950 documenting life and work on the Krueger Farm in Wisconsin. These photographs are the projects main source. To interpretate them we use the method of the Seriell-ikonografische Fotoanalyse. Referring to Martin Seels term of Ästhetische In-szenierung, Pierre Bourdieus Concept of Habitus and Hans-Georg Soeffners Concept of Style we analyse the way how families present themselves in their photographs. The photographs are analysed under the aspect of how the Krueger family presents the relations between the sexes, between generations and between work and leisure. In parallel we analyse where the Kruegers see themselves culturally and socially. The results of the casestudy will be confronted with the current state of research in the fields of history of education and of history of migration. Aim is to find out whether the results widen, confirm or put the current state of research into question. As a matter of fact in family history photographs as a source of its own kind have been rarely used until today. So the project intends to widen the knowledge about photographs in general.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants