Elizabeth Moran

Early twentieth century journalists would type their stories onto carbons, a multipart paper that produced a single inked original (the "white" pages) as well as carbon copies (the "yellows" and pinks"). Fact-checkers made notations of their research onto the yellows and pinks for TIME editors to review. The carbon paper responds to pressure, like photographic materials to light, leaving ghostly imprints of the checker's mark-making. As a material, carbonless paper can be seen as a proxy for the simultaneous presence and absence of these women and their contribution to modern journalism.

This series of triptychs present a collection of poems preserved in the TIME archive. When not writing for the magazine, early TIME writer E. D. Kennedy composed poems of love and longing, often about the team of women fact-checkers.

Kennedy’s poem, “IT’S A FACT,” includes the verse:
”Oh, checkers they are ladies who
Are almost monomaniacs
Obsessed by their devotion to
The need for ascertaining facts;
[…]
But they are not so expert at
Determining the Facts of Life.”

After photographing the original documents, I transform the digital images into photopolymer plates, which are used in an un-inked printing press. Using carbonless paper, the resulting prints is almost three-part facsimile of the original document found in the TIME archive. However without the use of ink, the “white” source page is rendered blank save for a subtle blind debossment of the text. It is only the yellows and the pinks that are legible.