Narrative images: Trolley

"One of the most important photographs in “The Americans,” one of the most celebrated ones, is this one of the trolleys in New Orleans. It was a picture that Frank made in the fall of 1955, just a few weeks before Rosa Parks in nearby Montgomery, Alabama, had refused to give up her seat on a bus.

As you can see, it shows a trolley, and we see in the front of the trolley, two older white people, two children in the middle of the trolley. The boy looking out, I think, with an almost quizzical expression, as if to ask the photographer and then also us, the viewer, “What is this world? What is going on?”

In the back of the trolley is this African American man, who looks out with an almost plaintive expression, questioning expression, about why the world is perhaps this way. You can see here the rigidly segregated society that existed in New Orleans at that time.

One of the really interesting facets about the picture is those who are old enough to remember segregated buses, particularly perhaps those in the South, in New Orleans, might notice that the little girl has her hand resting not actually on the back of the seat itself, but a little bit higher than the seat. And it turns out that her hand is resting on a piece of wood that indicated the “colored section” of the bus. And that piece of wood could be picked up and moved backwards if there were no more seats for white people on the bus. So, if you get on this bus at that time, and there was no seat for a white person you could pick that up move it to the next row of seats and all of the African Americans would have to get up and move one seat back on one road.

It’s a really, I think, chilling expression of racism in this country at that time.

(...) it still speaks about issues that we’re dealing with today in contemporary society, the racism that exists within America, and also (...) it’s such a poignant and powerful picture."

Sarah Greenough

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photograph by Robert Frank (New Orleans, 1955) via

... a state of latency waiting for the right circumstances

"There is a large research literature showing how antisemitism exists in many locations and how it spreads like a virus, or rather, how it never disappears but simply goes into a state of latency waiting for the right circumstances to become manifest." (Brekke, 2021)

- Brekke, T. (2021). Islamophobia and Antisemitism are Different in Their Potential for Globalization. Journal of Religion and Violence, doi: 10.5840/jrv202142689 

- photograph by Robert Frank (Detroit, 1955) via

Quoting Arthur Schopenhauer

“The cheapest sort of pride is national pride; for if a man is proud of his own nation, it argues that he has no qualities of his own of which he can be proud; otherwise he would not have recourse to those which he shares with so many millions of his fellowmen. The man who is endowed with important personal qualities will be only too ready to see clearly in what respects his own nation falls short, since their failings will be constantly before his eyes. But every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud adopts, as a last resource, pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and glad to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority.”
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)



“Compassion is the basis of morality.”
Arthur Schopenhauer

“For where did Dante get the material for his Hell, if not from this actual world of ours?”
Arthur Schopenhauer

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photograph by Robert Frank (1962) via

"Granny farming": An Analysis of Ageist Attitudes in the "Economist"

Martin et al. (2009) used the online digital archive of the "Economist" from January 1997 to May 2008 to study attitudes to ageing in the economic newspaper. Article content was assessed for stigmatisation of older people on account of their age or ageing and language was classified suggesting a less desirable (negative language portraying older people as a burden, as people with reduced personal worth) vs. more desirable (positive language portraying older people as a benefit to society) state because of older age.



Of the 6306 articles, 262 were relevant. The results:
168 articles portrayed population ageing as a burden,
63 articles portrayed a balanced view, and
31 portrayed it as a benefit.

Content analysis showed that articles about pensions and demography depicted population ageing in the most negative light. The authors analysed a ten-year period but could not discover a shift in attitudes over time. "The numbers of articles portraying older people in a negative or positive light were comparable between 1997 and 2008."

Some quotes:

- "The older they get, the more they cost" (23 September 2004)
- "Fewer and wrinklier Europeans" (13 January 2000)
- "They waddle slowly through the shopping malls; drive with exaggerated care on the freeways; fumble with their change at the check-out tills" (Venerable elders, 22 July 1999)
- "After years of warnings about the “demographic time bomb” due to detonate some time around 2020 (All-clear?" 13 April 2000)
- "Given that they all agree that a demographic “pension time-bomb” is ticking, Europe’s policymakers have done remarkably little to defuse it" (Old hopes stirring, 12 October 2000)
- "Wrinklies" (Fewer and wrinklier Europeans, 13 January 2000)
- "Weary crumblies" (Who wants to live forever? 21 December 2000)
- "Granny farming" (27 November 1997)
- "At what point does an ageing mind become a liability and not an asset" (Wisdom or senility, 16 February 2006)

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- Martin, R., Williams, C. & O'Neill, D. (2009). Retrospective analysis of attitudes to ageing in the Economist: apocalyptic demography for opinion formers. BMJ, online
- photographs by Robert Frank via