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• 1 media/image10.JPG 2017-03-08T06:46:55-08:00 How Carl Becker's "Everyman His Own Historian" helps show the true story of the Frances Patai Collection 22 gallery 2017-03-10T11:53:15-08:00          Carl Becker’s “Everyman His Own Historian” defines history as “the memory of things said and done” (Becker 1932, 233). This definition is important to consider when looking at archives like the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archive and specifically the Frances Patai collection because the physical contents of the archive might only be able to tell one type of history. When thinking of the ideal people that were on the front lines during the Spanish Civil War, the women pictured in Patai’s collection are not in the typical images we recall. Although men made up majority of the brigade, Patai showed the important role that women served by focusing on them in her photos. The women are often left out of the history that we remember because during the time of the Spanish Civil War, women and minorities were oppressed in the United States.
           It is important to tell the history of those whose stories were not told before because we must study history to learn from our mistakes. Becker says “our proper function is not to repeat the past but to make use of it, to correct and rationalize for common use Mr. Everyman’s mythological adaptation of what actually happened” (Becker 1932, 235). By including photographs of women and African American nurses actively participating in efforts to help soldiers injured the Spanish Civil War, viewers of the archive get a different historical perspective on who was truly fighting in the war.
           The women in the photo above are three members of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Their strong poses show us exactly what Frances Patai wanted us to know about the women of the Brigade: that they arrived ready to work hard and help all that they could during the Spanish Civil War.