Old photographs of Trinidad from the 1930s

09.02.2007 by Matthias G. Kauer

Greetings from Trinidad and Tobago.
I am a former journalist (although I now work in a computer company) and am seeking to gather old photographs of Trinidad from the 1930s onwards.

You can google me to verify my bona fides and get an idea of my interests. I am particularly interested in photographs and memorabilia of steelbands, steel drums and any related cultural or musical phenomena. This exercise is aimed at producing a photographic history of pan in book form and creating the beginnings of an archive of pan. PanTrinbago is fully on board. The idea is to gather the scattered images of pan in the early days before they are destroyed as their owners pass away. I need digitized images (at least 300 dpi). The provisional table of contents of the book (300 pages) is:
1. Introduction: The National Instrument / 2. Precursors / 3. Genesis (1939-1951) / 4. Early Days (1951-1962) / 5. Golden Years (1962-1972) / 6. Radical 70s / 7. 80s / 8. Modern Times (90s-today) / 9. Panyards & Steelbands / 10. The Arrangers / 11. The Instrument/Tuners / 12. Music / 13. Mas / 14. Women / 15. Youth / 16. The International Instrument.

Everyone agrees that it's an important and necessary project. The success of this project will depend on people's volunteering information, because I need to get at all the private photo albums in the hands of private citizens. As such it cannot be done without your assistance. So if you have any old photos, tickets, flyers, ads, or know of anyone who has, please contact me.

Kim Johnson, e-mail: eshu@tstt.net.tt