What the Archive Lacks
After visiting the archive, we did some research on the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, since we knew nothing about it prior to our visit. To our surprise, we found that the Brigade consisted almost entirely of white male soldiers. Frances Patai, on the other hand, focused primarily on female medical personnel, and even included an entire series on African American personnel (which we discovered made up only 85 members of the Brigade). Despite there being little information on the Brigade outside of the archives, it appears that perhaps the American Medical Bureau, of which the doctors and nurses in Patai’s photos would have been a part of, was entirely separate from, yet still associated with, the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Our general conclusion, though, was that while Patai’s archives show an interesting and refreshing perspective that we appreciated seeing, it certainly doesn’t accurately represent the Brigade as a whole. To someone simply viewing the archive without outside context, like we did, the archive suggests a story that is far from the truth. It is clear that Frances Patai wanted to showcase a specific narrative, so she was specific about which photos she collected. If other photos were included to show the true composition of the Brigade, it would undoubtedly create a different type of history and change the meaning of the archive entirely.
