This Photo of U.S. Immigration Isn’t What You Think | The Bigger Picture with Vincent Brown | PBS

Alfred Stieglitz’s iconic photograph “The Steerage” is often used to illustrate the American immigrant experience. Through conversations with curators and historians, host Vincent Brown discovers that there is much more to the image than meets the eye and invites viewers to reconsider common assumptions about immigration to the U.S. in the early 20th century.

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ABOUT THE SERIES:
Images can tell powerful stories. One iconic photograph can symbolize an entire era. But if we expand the frame and examine the moment in which it was taken, a very different story can emerge. In this series of documentary shorts, Harvard University historian Dr. Vincent Brown meets with curators, photographers and other experts to challenge common assumptions about iconic American images.

THE BIGGER PICTURE is a co-production of Timestamp Media LLC and The WNET Group, in association with Harvard University’s History Design Studio at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, and Vision Maker Media.

Major funding for THE BIGGER PICTURE was provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Additional funding was provided by the Anderson Family Charitable Fund, the Tamara L. Harris Foundation, the William Talbott Hillman Foundation, the Phillip and Edith Leonian Foundation and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Additional funding for the digital production of THE BIGGER PICTURE was provided by Chasing the Dream – a public media initiative from The WNET Group, reporting on poverty, opportunity, and justice in America, and supported by The JPB Foundation, The Peter G. Peterson and Joan Ganz Cooney Fund and Sue and Edgar Wachenheim, III.

[jso]

Was literally teaching my Rhetorical Criticism class about Narrative Criticism, and these ideas of dominant or hegemonic discourses, how speakers hew to them or counter them, and how they are not necessarily grounded in reality, but in the cultural story that people want to tell about themselves or others. I am going to show this episode on Wednesday as a piece of Visual Rhetoric and Brown's discussion as the critique.

[curiousworld]

Bravo. This was thoughtful, and an important discussion on perception and what we assume to be reality. And, whether or not it matters, in the 'big' picture. Historical nuances are often lost in myth; this was a good example of the depth of both.

[kidmohair]

I thank you for this exposition of one of the most famous photographs taken so far.
This explanation may be why Steiglitz called it "The Steerage".
Rather than what we have chosen to interpret it as.
07:29 niggling points: the upright tubular structure you identify as a funnel is a mast.
The lateral pole you identify as a mast is a cargo boom attached to that mast.

[NC-qcwd]

Professor Brown is again being who he is a classy academic

[renatacantore]

Thank you for sharing this photo & showing us the power of perception.

[erinrising]

My great-grandfather worked in the coal mines in Pennsylvania, then went back to Italy where he met my great-grandmother, got married (had a kid), then returned to America sending for her when he had made enough to support them. So when I look at this photo it's very easy to imagine my ancestor among them

[frankschmitzer]

Absolutely fascinating. Bravo. I have always loved this photo, but never knew its real history. Thank you very much.

[jimr]

Love this show, and this story. Proves the more things change, the more they stay the same.

[pathader]

My grandmother came over in steerage from Ireland

[yvonneplant]

If you are aware of how the first subway was built in NYC or how the train tunnel was built from New Jersey to NYC, you are already aware that many of the workers were seasonal migrants. They went back home when their work was done for the season.

[dynamics]

Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success. --Dale Carnegie

[TitanicLighthouse]

Titanic Memorial Lighthouse is New York's forgotten Immigrant Memorial. In 53 years as custodian, the Seaport Museum and President Jonathan Boulware have neglected to record the names of the 1, 496 victims from 28 nations. We ask the Office of Immigrant Affairs (MOIA) and Commissioner Manuel Castro to help resolve this historic neglect. #Titanic

[gagecarty]

I have a great grand uncle who traveled back and froth between NYC and Trinidad from the 1930's to work in NYC.

[TighelanderII]

The History of Photography class I'm taking recently talked about this and Stieglitz.

[thelessimportantajmichel]

Transatlantic passenger service was suspended when the United States entered World War I. My mother’s grandfather was working for a German company in New York, got stuck here and ended up staying even though his original plan was to return to Germany. I suspect that a lot of other temporary immigrants found themselves in the same situation and helped turn the narrative of immigration into a one-way flow

[grammiesspirit]

It amounts to exclusion vs inclusion…..your reality vs my reality….the reason for the delay of the publication of the photograph seems to me to be connected to where the larger audience will be

[yvonneplant]

There were other entry points: Philadelphia for one.

[carolinekamya]

TRUTH IS IMPORTANT. interpretation of that picture is a BIG LIE- lets go back to TRUTH

[pawoo]

so, the picture got turned into propaganda

[madbug]

My family came to America in 1906 from Japan in the SS America Maru. They came in steerage. On eBay I purchased at souvenir spoon from that ship. It was probably purchased by someone traveling in first class.