In living color (this is worth looking at....)

I am a fan of B&W photography for certain subjects, but original color pics like these seem to remove some of the percieved distance in time. Some of these shots look like they could have been taken today, others are definitely dated, but seem much more real than the B&W pics most of us are used to from this era.

Most of these date from the 40's. I have cropped and adjusted some of them on Photoshop to focus more on the cars. The originals can be found here....

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsachtml/fsacsubjindex1.html

 

Very cool pics, thanks.

 

They sure show that life is better today...There's some somber looking people in those shots.
The cars are really cool looking but the truth is, compared to today, they were all rattle trap junk by the time they had 40,000 or 60,000 miles on them

 

When you look at B&W pics, it really seems like a time far away, but in color, you get more of a sense of the reality. It's like when I was a kid I thought life was in B&W until the 60's...

I've set the street shot with the 39 as my desktop.

 

Very nice,good times but hard times ,that is when everybody set at the table to eat real food and talked to each other not just call on there cell phone from the other room or from the car,oh hell thats enough. alleyoop

 

Those are neat. Look at how sad they look at the picnic. The picture of the men holding their hats against their heads cracks me up. It looks as if they don't want to see, or talk to each other.

 

Fascinating archives.
I found a picture of the Cheney Brothers silk factory from my town. My grandfather worked there. It is strange to see all of this in color.
Ray in CT

 

Very nice!! I love the Rosie the Riviter-esque photo.

Thanks for posting!

 

I don't think that's a picnic; rural folks don't dress-up for a picnic like the lady in the red dress, and I think the men-folk are doffing their hats in respect to her. I think something much more serious than a picnic is going on there.

 

it's good to see they loved beer just as much back then as we do today...

 

My first thought is that it is lunch after a funeral.

BB

 

the one with the men respectfully removing their hats looks like a funeral

the gathering photos do not look like simple snap shots of daily life,
I believe these were noteworthy small town events

 

I look at old black and white pictures of my Grandparents and you have to make yourself think for a second that they didn't live in black and white, that evrything had as much color as today. Cool pix Thanks

 

Real cool pics one thing I noticed is where are all the fat people?? LOL Man if you took some pics of any get together these days at the very least 1/3 of them would be over weight!!! Those street pics are really neat...You can see not every thing was perfect and clean which gets lost some time in B&W pics....

 

Great pictures, and an unusually intimate view of life in the past. Thanks!

 

Thanks! That is a great database. I have been looking for some pictures from WWII to post in my classroom and there are some great ones of ladys in the service corps. It is hard to get high school kids to be thankful for anything. I try to instill a sense of pride in the accomlishments of their parents, grandparents and great grandparents. Some of these pics will help.

 

hi im new can you please tell me how to make a post

 

Quite a database, ty for sharing

 

The caption said they were saying Grace before the meal, thats why they're doffing their hats. I believe it said it was a town BBQ in Pie Town New Mexico. There are several more pictures from the same location in the database.

 

This kid reminds me of those stupid dolls they lean up against cars at the streetrod shows...

 

great pics

 

The last picture , of the general store -gas station-beer garden , has been shown here before . I have a full screen copy of it on my desk top. I am going to build an HO scale model of it one day.

 

I really enjoyed looking at your pictures, THANKS.
Hard life I'm sure but not as crazy as things are today.

 

love the old stores and gas stations. all the signs and stuff are worth a fortune these days. prolly $7500 worth of junk hanging on that gas station picture. could have bought a nice house for that much back then.

I also agree with the earlier post about tha fat people. fat people were few and far between back then since there were no fast food places on every corner.

 

Very cool to see color shots!

 

Here's one from 1942 that'll make most here weep...




Vance

 

Yea, cell phones can be quite handy nowadays, but life did seem a lot slower before they came around. A lot more quality time spent with family and less time chasing the dollar.

 

I imagine they were turned into Bomb casings and K Ration cans...

 

i liked Rosy the ripper working on a radical airplane engine, only hear one run in my whole life

 

Truly amazing.., these kind of images are the closest thing to the time machine.., bring the sense that real people existed at that time and they were just like you and me (well..., almost).
The parked cars pic is awesome.., look at the girl also.

Thanks
D.