Because the Olympics is one of the most watched sports events and will be coming to Los Angeles in the year of 2024, it will be interesting doing a historical narrative based on this archive. This archive contains photographs and program copies of the 1932 summer Olympics. The collection itself is split into three folders; the first folder contains labels and 1932 program copies, photographs of cyclists and bicycle advertisement, photographs of rowing, lacrosse, swimming, relay along with an aerial Coliseum.
With this archive, we will be able to determine how the Olympics have changed over time. We are able to see what sports are present, what type of people were there, how big the Olympics were, what sponsors were contributing to the event, how the arena looked like, and how the athletes looked like. Since this did take place at California State University, Dominguez Hills, we are able to compare the aerial view of how the field was during the Olympics and now. Just by seeing the difference in the environment, we would see the university changing to a more suburban and urban area.If I based my narrative only on this archive, I would be limiting myself to the knowledge on the politics that took place during the Olympics. Because during certain time periods, countries are not financially stable to participate or they are unable to participate at all. With the information provided, we are not given the resources we need to determine why a particular country showed up one year and did not show up at the next Olympics. Figuring out why a certain country was not able to participate definitely demonstrates their relationship with the big four countries along with others.
If I based my narrative only on this archive, I would be limiting myself to the knowledge on the politics that took place during the Olympics. Because during certain time periods, countries are not financially stable to participate or they are unable to participate at all. With the information provided, we are not given the resources we need to determine why a particular country showed up one year and did not show up at the next Olympics. Figuring out why a certain country was not able to participate definitely demonstrates their relationship with the big four countries along with others.
In order to resolve this gap, we would have to research time periods along with reading news articles about what is going on with a certain country during the time and before the Olympics. We can do research about whether or not there are conflicts with certain countries and why one is participating instead of the other.
I looked at the 1984 Olympics collection and I ran into the same setbacks that you noticed. I realized something that was missing from the collection, was a list of countries that did/ did not participate in the games. It really is fascinating to see what political climate certain countries were in, that allowed or did not allow them to compete. I certainly will look into that more as a way to resolve the gaps in both collections.
I like that you chose the Olympics Collection that was held in Los Angeles before now that an Olympics is coming back here in 2024. It’s crazy to think how much will change in over 90 years. For the most part the sports have remained the same but the technology to record or judge the sports, the advertising, and the arena/equipment has vastly changed or improved.