Analysis Of Trolley New Orleans Taken By Robert Frank

In the photograph Trolley - New Orleans taken by Robert Frank, multiple perspectives are on display that go on to signify the different viewpoints on that period of time as well as serving as documentation of segregation in New Orleans. It is a photograph depicting a trolley with passengers. Frank uses the rule of thirds to place focus on the middle third with the passengers, while leaving the other two thirds as the plain trolley. Each window of the trolley gives a view into that passengers position in the context of the society and their expressions can be read as symbolism for the period of time. The first passenger an older white woman looks out of the car judgingly with an eyebrow raised at the world. The second window shows two white children one older one younger dressed up. The third passenger a black man has a hopeless expression and the last passenger, a black woman, is observing the street from her window. The image is striking for Frank’s use of framing through the windows, the eye is drawn into the personal world of

each passenger. Thus the photograph is visual evidence of the segregation in the United States during this time.
Trolley is a significant photograph through its context which shows segregation in the city of New Orleans at the time it was taken in the year 1955.

Seeing the separation of people in the trolley evokes the inequality and unjust nature of the laws that once governed that society in that period of time. In Practices of Looking the authors, Sturken and Cartwright, create more context for the photograph by placing it in relation to other events that go on to spark the Civil Rights movement, such as Rosa Parks refusal to move seats that happened that same year and the Brown v. Board of Education desegregation decision that happened the preceding year in 1954. These events place Trolley on the brink of immense social change, suggesting a tension between the subjects of the photograph. This photograph connotes the segregation during the time of Jim Crow laws in the American South and serves as a viewpoint into race relations during that

time.
Bringing together the “denotative” and “connotative” meanings of this photograph, there are a group of people on this trolley that are each in their own lives, they are following the laws of that time that mandate a separation of people by race. Trolley shows the separation distinctly and with that elicits feelings about race relations in the 1950’s this time period is significant because it is when the Civil Rights movement garners more attention and momentum. Therefore the photograph shows a social order that will change. Frank captures evidence of the trolley in that time period, it is indexical showing exactly how a trolley was in segregated New Orleans. Yet it also carries a symbolic meaning each passenger a channel showing their perspectives on their society’s laws and the momentous change it would undergo.