The Colour of History

Historians create pictures of the past based on evidence and historical imagination.  This stereo pair of Confederate prisoners captured at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863 has been colourised using modern technology.  Notice how much more it brings the scene to life (especially when viewed as a    3 D image).

In this case, the colour has been guessed using intuition and a knowledge of the period.  However, the real-life soldiers  might have been wearing grey, bluish or butternut uniforms as opposed to the assumed colours of the photographs.  Likewise, the colour of the earth,vegetation, wood and earth are also conjecture.

The colour photographs illustrate graphically some of the problems historians face in creating models of the past.
Historians must try to bring the past to life; however, to do so, the image created will always reflect the historian’s historical imagination.

Gettysburg,Pa. Thre Confederate Prisoners [stereograph pair]
Library of Congress, 1977. No. 0207
Plates:  left LC-B811-2288B and right LC-B811-2288A

Anyone who believes you can't change history has never tried to write his memoirs.

[David Ben Gurion]

History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are. [David C. McCullough]

History is the only laboratory we have in which to test the consequences of thought.

[Etienne Gilson]

That generations of historians have resorted to what might be called "proof by haphazard quotation" does not make the procedure valid or reliable; it only makes it traditional.
Lee Benson

"History" is a Greek word which means, literally, just "investigation."
Arnold Toynbee