"I don't know if America has ever been more complex than during this time period... Then again, I wasn't there..." Both sets of my Grandparents made it through the depression in Mississippi employed and housed, and were both still surprised at their good fortune because they had seen so much trouble around them... My father's father was a county agricultural agent, and so lived through a time of foreclosure auctions, farmers too des***ute to buy seed, people without a nickel for a loaf of bread. One farm family he worked with had three kids, but only one was ever seen at a time--there was only one set of rags for all three to wear... He said the country he saw was headed for violent revolution in 1932. Everyone was at an absolute desperate dead end, and Roosevelt's programs somehow injected a bit of hope that staved off the coming violence. My mother's father prepared for what he saw as inevitable unemployment and desperation by moving his family to a little patch of land in the country, planting vegetables, and buying a cow and chickens. He too kept his job and survived, but he fully expected a future of primitive subsistence farming.
Understand that you are looking at the best work of the best American do***entarian photographers of the time. Read the names of the artists and look for further examoples of their work. I have books of Jack Delanos work. the subject matter mostly railroads. This is not an accidental collection of snapshots. The phographers were working at the behest of the government to record the events and forces that were reshaping the United States. This was one the finest realiztionions of the idea of the "objective" nature of phography and it's possibilities for social improvement.You have to be pretty impressed that at one time there were people working in the federal government with the sensability to concieve and bring forth something like this What the hell ever happened to them?
The New Dealers stayed with the Democratic Party and got marginalized by the special interests and demonized by the conservatives as "big government."
Thanks Ryan. I was born in '46, but some of those shots are my memories of growing up in the South and being on my grandparents South Georgia farm in the summers. I need to find some shots of hands picking and sticking tobacco, picking watermelons, and cutting pulpwood. Keep in mind that a lot of the rural South was just getting electricity in the late 30's. My granddaddy never owned a vehicle, just mules and horses. Only went to town on Saturday. A neighbor or daughter would "drive him". The Great Depression and WWII was pretty much the same before and after. You either grew it or made it to survive. "Store bought" was a big deal. Farmers riding hoseback to a country church with their new bib overalls and a white starched shirt. Sears-Roebuck catalogue in the outhouse. Women always tore out the ladies undergarment section so we boys wouldn't be "Tempted". Thanks for reviving the memories. Good stuff.
Thanks so much Ryan for putting this up, I've really been diggin' all those old photos. The one of the P51 on test flight from the Inglewood, CA plant in 1942 made me think of my dad who worked there ***embling machine guns and cannon that year which is also the year I was born. That plane is so new it hasn't even had the serial # painted on it yet. Early Allison engined version, later called the A36 and used for ground attack.
A P-51A to be sure. The A-36 was similar, but I think the differences went beyond dive brakes on a '51, didn't they?
Yeah pretty much an Allison P51, dive brakes...same armament, 4x 20mm cannon. They sent a bunch of Allison powered P51s to the Brits but they were underpowered so the Brits used 'em for ground attack and also cobbled up a Merlin engine conversion. Then Packard licensed the Merlin and the rest is history. The problem with the Allison was that the turbocharger wasn't perfected yet and by the time it was time had p***ed it by. That's why the P39 was an underpowered dog, no turbo. Russkys did good with 'em though against German tanks.
I thought Army Air Force specs had them remove the turbo from the Airacobra. Fascinating to me is the short run of Merlin powered P-40s - G models, perhaps? Discontinued because the Merlins were needed for the Mustangs. Were the P-63 Kingcobras Allison powered too? I know they did decently at Reno after the war.
color makes it seem so real...those imiages in black and white would just look like old photos. We remember in color but the pictures are always black and white. Its great to see it like it really was.
Those are really cool photos. Hard to believe that so many folks alive in the USA today have never seen or experienced any of those things shown in the photos. Tose are long ago events ..... almost forgotten, unfortunately.
Very cool, like Edward Hoppers paintings everything is "air-less" and "haunting." Then again I was always touched by the artists that were involved in the "American Scene" movement and this sort of photography was part of that. Work like this sticks with you just as much as the great masters.
Definitely something to this. The look the feel.. Like to build a place just like this to hang out at in the south valley of Albuquerque... With a 12 car garage for my friends would be perfect.
You begin to see how our culture has become homogenized in the last 50 years. All manner of eccentricity is being lost. We didn't realize what qualities were being subsumed as it was occurring. From time to time Americans seem all too willing to trade the good stuff that they already have to some charleton for a handful of magic beans. I'm not speaking in the sense of partisan politics but in this instance maybe technological advances. (I think we can all agree that working in a carbon black factory probably ****ed big. Industrial working conditions have improved. The share-cropping system was a ******* stepchild of the old Plantation system. There is much that is so much better) The United States in these photos wasn't filled with all the "stuff" we have now but I think we can all percieve a genuine wealth there that is faded or we just don't see because we are so distracted from it. Call it "the good old days", "golden era" etc. I think it incorrect to dismiss this as "Nostalgia" or sentimentality (nothing wrong with sentiment). It is more valuble than that. Thanks for putting this up Mr. C. It makes me want to find more of it. The Library of Congress is pretty neat, isn't it? Hell yes it is!
I just noticed that this is Frenchies Bar and Frenchies Beer Garden. They have barbeque and cold beer. What else do you need? Don't you just love "Beer Garden"?
Wasn't just the south. I spent this summer talking to my grandpa here in central Illinois. He turned 90 this year and remembers the ceiling lamp in his aunt's house because nobody else in the area had electricity. I guess the difference is that electricity was available, but it was still kind of a novelty. The coolest part about his stories is that he lives on old family land, so you can really see what he's talking about. I always poke around a little before we talk, just to see what I can find that'll jog his memory, and then again afterwards to kind of stand where he stood. I've found pieces of the original house, a ton of unlabeled pictures, 100 years' worth of tools, tags from the old mine, and a ton of farm equipment, including the old scythes and horsedrawn plows. If you want a truly humbling experience, try working a patch of land the old fashioned way. Those old farmers were tough. Edit: Now that I think about it, I think they got electricity in the '20s. Most of the stories he's told lately have been about the '30s, so I got my facts mixed up.
Wow! I feel like I can walk around in some of those pictures. I like the war bonds poster on the wall at the school, I wonder if anyone makes those?
Sorry for digging, but "Jalopy Journal" material? I have been going thru my HAMB saves and finding long lost posts. Chris Nelson Kansas
Thanks for the link, its gona burn my eyes out looking at all the pics in the link for the library of congress typed in s**** and it brought up some cool stuff!!!
Hey when you're done with the L of C site try the National archives site: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/picturing_the_century/galleries/galleries.html The picturing of a century and the portfolios have some neat stuff, B and W mostly. My favorites pictures are Saturday afternoon street scene (gallery-postwar America, look at the theater sign), and Postman delivering mail (portfolio-George Ackerman) MissyD (wife and secretary)
The Jalopy Journal
