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Flash Talk: From the Motor City to the Mediterranean

The Kelsey Museum presents “From the Motor City to the Mediterranean: Travels of a Truck, a Sedan, and an Inquisitive Photographer, 1924–1926,” a Flash Talk given by Curator Emerita Lauren E. Talalay on October 16, 2024. From 1924 to 1926, teams from the University of Michigan ventured into the Mediterranean, Near East, and North Africa to undertake pioneering archaeological projects. Essential participants in these adventures were two Detroit-made “dig” cars—a Graham Brothers truck and a Dodge sedan, both donated by the Dodge Brothers Company. Each carried hundreds of pounds of equipment, personnel, and supplies, all while navigating miles of uncharted deserts, perilous mountain passes, and remote locations devoid of anything resembling a road. The official photographer for the campaigns, as well as the man who drove and maintained the vehicles, was George R. Swain. A longtime high school teacher and principal, an inveterate explorer, and an avid writer, Swain was hired to document the archaeological discoveries. He became equally intrigued, however, by the modern world around him, writing insightful letters home to his family about the people and places he encountered and taking hundreds of ethnographic images. By framing the “seeable” (Swain’s photographs) with the “sayable” (his writings), this Flash Talk invites us to contemplate the poetry and poverty of life in distant and storied locations of the 1920s. Together, they explore places rarely seen by the outside world during a decade of seminal social change after the Great War. Kelsey Museum Flash Talks are 15-minute Zoom lectures by Kelsey curators, staff members, researchers, graduate students, and guests talking about their recent research or current projects. Each presentation is followed by 15 minutes of Q&A. Flash Talks are free and open to all visitors. 00:00 Introduction 01:15 Research Background 03:16 George Swain Biography 04:29 Swain’s Writings 05:52 Recording Time Present 07:04 Post-WWI Changes 08:11 Select Images from 1924 10:45 Travels of 1925 16:01 Photos from 1926 16:21 Colonialism in the 1920s 21:26 Q&A 30:32 Conclusion