By Jim Shelton, Register Staff
NEW HAVEN – The Obama inauguration has come and gone, but its place in history has yet to be determined.
That effort starts now, as historians, journalists and others sort through what happened and figure out what the inauguration meant in terms of history. Part of the process happens today, and you’re invited to help.
Yale’s American Studies program and the New Haven Museum & Historical Society will host “Picturing Obama: New Haven Reflects on the Inauguration,” at 5:30 p.m. at the museum. It includes an exhibit of photos taken at the inauguration by local people, plus a panel discussion.
“We’re still trying to articulate what this event was,” says Matthew Jacobson, chairman of the American Studies program. “It’s not a bug in amber yet. We’re still having the discussion.”
The panel for today’s event includes Elizabeth Alexander, the Yale poet who wrote the inauguration’s official poem; Yale historian David Blight, director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition; attorney James Bowers of Hartford; Myra Jones-Taylor of the American Studies and Anthropology programs at Yale; and Jacobson.
Jacobson will moderate the discussion, as well as offer his observations about attending the inauguration.
“There was a hush, a reverence over the whole day,” he says. He attended the inauguration with photographer Renee Athay, and the pair collected material for a documentary about the day.
“The most powerful photographs were portraits of people taking in the moment,” Jacobson recalls. “I thought, ‘Here’s what enfranchisement looks like.’ I felt that with this one event, suddenly the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s seemed different. Something was going on during those years that eventually allowed for the election of Barack Obama.”
Today’s event also features a photo presentation, billed as “24 Hours at the Inaugural.” Using photos from both professional and amateur photographers, it covers each hour from the evening before the inauguration to sunset the following day.
The photos will be on display in a PowerPoint format, as well as adorning the walls of the museum. The display will remain in place through Memorial Day.
William Hosley, the museum’s creative director, also attended the Obama inauguration. The idea for “Picturing Obama” grew out of conversations he had with Jacobson, along with the informal photo swapping he noticed among people who made the trip to Washington, D.C.
“We thought, wouldn’t it be thrilling to apply some of this energy to a local case study?” Hosley recalls. “It converges nicely with a lot of things that matter to this museum as an institution. After all, history starts 10 minutes ago.”
Hosley and Jacobson put out a call for community photos of the inauguration, generating about 180 shots from a cross section of people.
“It’s democracy,” Hosley says. “It’s opening the floodgate and seeing a diversity of evidence come through. The public becomes a participant.”
Jacobson says the merging of academicians and the general public on projects such as this is enriching for everyone. “People who contributed photos had a real eye for what was going on that day,” he says. “Theirs was a serious contribution, and it presents real opportunities for discussion.”
Hosley pulls out a print of one of his own photos. It shows a woman holding an American flag and looking confidently at the camera.
“That day was more than peaceful. It was reverential,” he says. “It was also exhausting and cold. But very cool.”
Jim Shelton can be reached at (203) 789-5664 or jshelton@nhregister.com.