This photo spread entitled “We, the People…” has very little text associated with it. However, like so much of what Vermont Life Magazine deploys, the visual language here is rich in meaning. We can see a series of photos representing people of a variety of age groups, all of whom are depicted as white. Two photos on the left side of the spread, however, depicting two young boys and a mother and child, respectively, strike me as particularly significant.

 

The culturally imagined child has been discussed in American Studies scholarship as the object of political action. The futurism associated with the imagined child is deeply tied to political action. Reading this text with that in mind, we can see that the aim of the civic participation represented in these photos is a preservation of whiteness and patriarchy.

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This visual text is particularly significant given the larger context and aims of the Civil Rights Movement at the time, a central goal of which was to achieve equal voting rights and opportunity. By celebrating civic participation in this way, Vermont life Magazine deploys images and symbols which bolster voting as a culturally white institution.

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