Instagram Then and Now

After feeling pretty hep for blogging, we are finally moving into the current decade with an Instagram account. Instagram was going to be an easy way to share vacation photos while on the go, but, like most social media, it transformed into a venue for self expression. We have a lot to express, so it should be fun.

Being of the archival mindset, always looking to the past for an new, more powerful sense of the present, we couldn't stay away from an example of an ur-Instagram: Dartmouth Membooks. This one is particularly fitting. A hundred years ago Conrad Snow '12 visited Europe while a student at Dartmouth. He documented his travels with dozens of postcards and other images (Instagram's original intent), then assembled them in his Membook as an act of self creation (Instagram's more typical use!). His travels became him, his pages of images transformed over time into the self we can still visit.

Conrad Snow was pretty amazing. Later in life he was chief of the State Department's Loyalty Security Board during the McCarthy Era and was instrumental in McCarthy's eventual downfall.

You can expect a Membook image every other Monday on Instagram ("Membook Monday") and you can see Conrad Snow's Membook by asking for it at the desk.