Back about 1975, I had the privilege of spending some time with Carolyn Bennett Patterson, who was the captions editor of National Geographic. I was working on the Tombstone Epitaph at the time, and a writing or geographic group had a big conference in Tombstone.
Carolyn and I had a nice conversation, and then she invited me to join her and her husband for dinner. I learned a tremendous amount about how journalism worked in the real world. But what stuck with me was her job. I had long been a reader of National Geographic — not cover to cover, but articles that interested me. And there were many. But I had never noticed the one aspect that she was responsible for — the captions..
Yes, I read them, of course. But she explained that the captions were far more than just a retelling of what the main article had to say. The provided a completely different storyline. One that was complementary. That article itself flowed as one would expect of a story, but the captions added color and details.
Since that time, I’ve thought of Carolyn frequently and had wished I was in the position to do that with something I was publishing. Now I can! Perhaps not as completely as she did, but it’s a start!
Take, for example, the post on the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The article tells the basic story, but the captions wrapped around the illustrations don’t simply offer a rehash. The caption on the James K. Polk stamp talks about Manifest Destiny. The stamp of Octavio Paz — which itself is an adjunct to the story, only because I didn’t think about it until the story was written — discusses his work in describing how Mexicans can think of their heritage.
The namesake town for the treaty offers a pair of stamps and an explanation of where the name(s) originated.
I don’t know that I always can, or will, do this, but when I do, I will think of you Carolyn!
(More about her in this obituary in the Washington Post.)