Although I am picky about copyright issues I do wish that federal government sites would not post old photos then claim we cannot use them AND make it impossible to do so by means of a watermark. An example of this is the U.S. Army's history outfit at Carlisle Barracks. I understand that a portion of their Civil War photos are "on loan," so to speak from a Massachusetts lineage group. However, their generic "Civil War photos" with no attribution or restrictions noted also have big stamp on them saying that they came from the US Army Heritage and Education Center, don't touch! Unless they can prove these photos are NOT in the public domain - and maybe they aren't - they should not prevent fair use of these photos. They are 150 years old and no provenance is given, that I can see. [I do not know why this is showing up in italics, sorry.]
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I have changed the links on the home page for the life portraits of pilgrim Edward Winslow and son Josiah Winslow. They had previously taken visitors to the Pilgrim Hall site but the photos seem to no longer be visible online there. Instead, all links lead to the Pilgrim Hall home page only, and a search does not turn up either image. On the bottom right of their home page is a small, low res version of the Edward Winslow image, but that is all. Instead, my links now lead to the entries for Edward and John's wikipedia writeups. Wikipedia claims that images of old art should be public domain, even if they legally are not. You are welcome to join wikipedia and become part of that discussion if you choose. I appreciate the need for institutions to be able to make some income from sale of rights to their images so my links are not to the wikpedia images but to the writeups. You can click on the images and see a bigger version. Yes, this is moral hair-splitting, but it is the best I can do. I do not link to or display images of any other Pilgrim because none of them were done from life except that of Edward and son John (not a Mayflower passenger) and for the purposes of this web site they are useless. As a historian I do believe there is some public right to the image of these two public figures who served in early American government.
There are pros and cons to putting a lot of immediate family members on this web site. Sometimes not a one of them looks like anyone else in the clan, so you wonder, "What did that accomplish?" On the other hand, if there are enough images under any one particular PIlgrim, you might be able to detect similarities to distant relatives of the same Pilgrim. For example, under Chilton I had two photos of members of the Ames family of Plymouth and Bristol Counties, MA and today found three more and posted them. Except for the facial hair, being 19th century photos, none of them looks like anyone else. So which, if any, looked like a Chilton? Oliver 2d actually resembled Estelle Clark, directly below him, and Benjamin Winslow Harris, directly below her. Estelle and the Ames were Chiltons via Mary (Chilton) Winslow (Mrs. John Winslow). Benjamin was a Chilton via his father but his mother was a descendant of John Winslow's brother Kenelm. Perhaps these three look like Winslows? None look like the portrait of Edward Winslow (the only Pilgrim portrait done from life), but do look a little like his son Josiah. Maybe they look like the other Winslow siblings who came to Massachusetts. What do you think?
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AuthorDr. Maura Mackowski is an Arizona research historian who enjoys the challenge of looking for Mayflower descendants, hers and anyone else's. Archives
October 2020
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