https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/files/original/9c50040245ca05f2cea5731c84cf83a2.pdf 98c7edef8f7c25214e9fe520ffd21e26 PDF Text Text 1 Project: The Postcard Perspective: Image, Message, and the Material Culture of Casper Areas of Project Focus: Historical Methods, Public History, Visual Communication Analysis, Archival Research. Goal To analyze a historical Casper photograph or postcard as a form of strategic communication and material culture, using the Charles "Chuck" Morrison Photographs and Papers to provide the necessary historical context, challenge its idealized message, and interpret its cultural purpose. Part 1: Source Selection and Contextual Mapping (Information Literacy) Task A: Thematic Selection Students must choose one central theme documented by Charles "Chuck" Morrison and connect it to a historical Casper photograph or postcard with the support of an archivist. Possible Themes from Morrison's Records: 1. Casper's Industry: (e.g., Oil refineries, New York Oil Company) 2. Casper's Civic Architecture/Landmarks: (e.g., Downtown buildings, City Hall, Demorest Home) 3. Transportation/Events: (e.g., the Cole Creek Wreck, Kevin Dye rescue operation, Teton National Park elk problem and other photographs, or general trains/travel) 4. Wyoming Politics: (e.g., State Legislature or a political figure's local office) Task B: Postcard and Archival Selection 1. Postcard (The "Idealized Front"): Select a postcard that visually represents the chosen theme (e.g., a pristine view of a refinery, an image of the state capitol, or a scenic view of a public building). 2. Morrison's Papers (The "Hidden Back"): Identify and pull three to five specific archival items from the Morrison Papers that relate to the postcard's subject but offer a less idealized, contextual, or contradictory view (e.g., a photo of the same Casper College Goodstein Foundation Library Western History Center 125 College Drive, Casper, WY 82601 �2 refinery during a strike, political correspondence discussing the building's maintenance issues, or records detailing a transportation disaster). 3. Corroborating Source (The "Official Narrative"): Identify one contemporary source (e.g., a Casper Star-Tribune article, a government document, or a business record from a corroborating collection) that was contemporaneous with the postcard's creation. Deliverable for Part 1: Contextual Mapping Document • A high-resolution image of the selected postcard. • A brief (250-word) description of the postcard's visual message (What is it selling?). • Archival citations for the 3-5 Morrison sources and the 1 corroborating source, along with a brief explanation of how each archival piece contextualizes or complicates the postcard's visual narrative. Part 2: Synthesis (Critical Thinking & Effective Communication) The following components can be selected for a focused synthesis of a Postcard Perspective: Image, Message, and Material Culture of Casper project. 1. The Rhetoric of the Front: Analyze the visual and textual rhetoric of the postcard. What did the postcard producer/publisher want the recipient to think about Casper? How does the image employ techniques like cropping, lighting, or idealized composition to create a specific message? 2. The Contextual Reality: Introduce the evidence from the Morrison Papers. How do these private or professional records (the "Hidden Back") reveal the actual economic, political, or social conditions that the postcard (the "Idealized Front") deliberately ignored or simplified? 3. Material Culture and Memory: Interpret the postcard as a piece of material culture and public history. What does its existence and its message tell us about what the community chose to remember or chose to promote about itself in that specific historical moment? 4. Lifelong Learning Reflection: Conclude with a section reflecting on how the constraints of media (the tiny space on the postcard) influence historical understanding and how archival research is necessary to deconstruct strategic messaging—a skill critical for navigating information in modern life. Casper College Goodstein Foundation Library Western History Center 125 College Drive, Casper, WY 82601 �3 • Full academic citations (e.g., Chicago Manual of Style) for all primary and secondary sources. Lifelong Learning Skills Reinforced Skill How the Assignment Reinforces It Critical Evaluation Students must actively deconstruct the postcard's selective, often propagandistic, message using primary source evidence. Information Literacy The required integration of three distinct types of primary sources (visual postcard, private archival papers, and public news/records) demands advanced source triangulation. By reading the personal context in Morrison's papers, students gain Historical Empathy insight into the human experiences (e.g., economic stress, political conflict) that existed beneath the postcard's glossy surface. Communication & Synthesis Students must translate raw archival data into a coherent, structured, and persuasive historical argument. Casper College Goodstein Foundation Library Western History Center 125 College Drive, Casper, WY 82601 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "Postcard Perspectives: Image, Message, and the Material Culture of Casper" Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="https://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/</a> Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 2025-11-09 Description An account of the resource Postcard Perspectives: Image, Message, and the Material Culture of Casper is a potential project that incorporates use of the Chuck Morrison Photographs and Papers as a project idea for Media Communication Majors. Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hanz Olson Language A language of the resource ENG