
Depression-era color photos - ujeezy
http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2010/07/26/captured-america-in-color-from-1939-1943/
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api
Makes me wonder how today will be remembered...

"An unemployed hipster tweeting from his iPhone outside a shuttered financial
firm. New York, New York, April 2010. Reproduction from JPEG. Photo by Jack
Smith. Holographic Storage Division, Library of Congress."

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nostrademons
It's funny how the documentary technology affects how we view the past. These
photos seem much more cheerful than the black & white images that we usually
associate with the Depression and WW2. If it weren't for the car & clothing
styles, they could be taken today.

I wonder if our grandchildren will view our still, color photos the same way.
Life was so drab and depressing before motion & 3D!

~~~
biggitybones
I agree - although I view it a bit different. I always feel a disconnect with
black and white photos, as if it's something that happened centuries ago or
not at all. These photos somehow make it feel more "real".

~~~
zbyszek
Oh dear. There are black-and-white photos of my childhood. I didn't think I
was that old -- until now!

~~~
mitjak
My dad always took black and white photos, even through the 90s. So I suppose
you're not.

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ambiate
Some of those images are almost haunting. The family living in the dugout
home... those meals look just like the ones my great grandmother prepared
everyday. One mason jar of green beans, a jar of milk (she always transferred
store bought milk into jars), home made biscuits (key ingredient was lard :|),
and a portion of rice. She was a nurse during the time of the depression. It
almost gives a glimpse of where she got some of her habits. When you're the
poor all you know to do is work and grow your own food... she had an excellent
garden! She lived like this until she died at 93 in '98. (She was filthy rich
from investing during the time of the depression and cashing out... no one
even grasped how much money this woman had)

On a side note, the locomotives reminded me of the visual imagery that crossed
my mind while reading Atlas Shrugged.

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roel_v
"On a side note, the locomotives reminded me of the visual imagery that
crossed my mind while reading Atlas Shrugged."

Exactly what I thought when I saw them. These images are great and would do
great as a coffee table book to flip through while reading Atlas Shrugged.

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run4yourlives
70 slides, and not a single overweight person to be seen.

Just an observation.

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stonemetal
Not sure which slides you were looking at but 3(old guy on the left is
arguably larger than he should be), 12(portly gent on the right), and 66(a
fine double chin if ever I saw one) have overweight people in them. Also it
was the great depression not exactly known as a time of plenty.

~~~
tibbon
Yet we're in an economic downturn, which is supposed to be a time of lacking
as well and people are fatter than ever.

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brianobush
snacks and heavily processed foods are cheaper than healthy fresh vegetables
and fruits. the easy path...

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edw519
Not very many smiles.

Maybe this was before the convention of, "Say cheese!"

Or more likely, I suspect, because life was hard and people had little.

Makes one appreciate how good we have it now.

</adjusts air conditioning> </shifts butt in Aeron> </grabs Red Bull>

~~~
d2viant
We view it as hard compared to what we have now. However, not having that
comparison -- did people back then actually think life was hard? Or was it
just normal?

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rdtsc
I guess some cultures and countries regard photographs as just documentary
evidence of what the subject looks like. Or what the situation is like. If
everyone is dancing and singing, then there would probably be lots of laughing
people in the shot. But is accidental, not because the photographer is trying
to tease out a smile by saying something silly like "cheese". And then, if it
is just a portrait, then it makes sense to have a neutral expression...

I encountered this clash of cultures when I came to America from Eastern
Europe. Everyone looking at my family photos immediatly assumed everyone was
very unhappy because the subjects don't smile. I usually got the "Oh so sad,
everyone was so unhappy, it was probably because of communism...?". Nevermind
that it is a picture of a large family picnic, with plenty of food, kabobs
grilling in the background -- basically all the indications that everyone was
having a good time (and I know they were because I was there as well). Yet, I
always get the "unhappy people" sympathy comment. It always baffles me...

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daleharvey
The source of the photos, library of congress set on flickr is amazing

<http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/>

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delano
This article is just a small subset of the photos available. The Library of
Congress has many more on Flickr:

[http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/sets/721576...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/sets/72157603671370361/)

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joezydeco
One thing that's always piqued my curiosity is the old handwriting seen in
these photos. Look at #6 and #30.

You see a lot of this style of handwriting pre-WWII, then it disappears. What
changed?

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Semiapies
Cursive became bigger. If you look into the various "italic" schools of
handwriting/calligraphy, you can still find courses and books on writing that
way, though.

I've got that on my things-to-do after this summer...

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simoncoggins
Reminds me of these images of Russia made with Digichromatography:

<http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/>

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jlm382
If it weren't for the "hard-times", our perceived happiness levels are likely
to be pretty similar. The people from 1940 probably looked at the black-and-
white photos of the Civil War era, and thought how hard it must have been to
live in a world without cars and planes.

For all we know, the next generation will think back on us 2010-folk and think
"could you believe it took 5 hours to cross the country by plane?!"

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og1
Photo number 6 is Twitter circa 1940.

~~~
cgs1019
Twitter circa 1935:

[http://gizmodo.com/5254222/olde-timey-notificator-machine-
tw...](http://gizmodo.com/5254222/olde-timey-notificator-machine-twitters-
like-its-1935)

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ugh
Contrast, compare: <http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/02/at_work.html>

Not exactly the same (only work themed photos, international) but offers some
additional perspective.

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kree10
Great pictures, but I have a technical gripe: while waiting (and waiting) for
these to load, I took a look at the HTTP headers of one image:
[http://denverpost.slideshowpro.com/albums/001/496/album-1251...](http://denverpost.slideshowpro.com/albums/001/496/album-125171/cache/color021.sJPG_950_2000_0_75_0_50_50.sJPG?1281011079)

Given that URL I thought I'd see some flickr-style years-in-the-future Expires
and Cache-control headers. The article is dated July 26, but 1281011079
(assuming this is an 'epoch time') is today, August 5. It's almost like they
went out of their way to defeat caches by tacking on that query string.

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dangoldin
This reminded me of early 20th century photographs of Russia at the
Smithsonian:

<http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/>

They were constructed due to the photographer foresight of using different
lens filters.

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noelchurchill
Those are some amazing photos. Such a treat to have them in color.

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marstall
era check: photos taken 1939-45, which was WWII. Depression ended in the late
'30s/early '40s.

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dugmartin
My dad has a picture of him sitting in his one-room school house around 1942
that looks almost exactly like the one in this post. He has his shoes on in
the picture which I guess was a rarity - the teacher used to make him take
them off at the door because of all the cow crap he stepped in milking the cow
before school.

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invisible
It's kind of strange to see these - but it is especially striking as I share
the surname "Caudill" with the #1 and #17. I never thought of it as very
common, so perhaps I'm related somehow.

Some very neat photos in there though, and interesting to see the
world/country in a different phase.

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hubb
[http://denverpost.slideshowpro.com/albums/001/496/album-1251...](http://denverpost.slideshowpro.com/albums/001/496/album-125171/cache/color045.sJPG_950_2000_0_75_0_50_50.sJPG?1280949536)

is that snow in new mexico?! is that normal there?

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jonknee
Quite. The lowest point in the state is something like 2,500 feet and average
is around 5,500. Been in snow there myself and I've only been twice. It's
gorgeous.

<http://www.google.com/images?q=new%20mexico%20snow>

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lanstein
Wow. I've actually been written up in the newspaper in picture 6. That's kind
of a trip.

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misterbwong
wow. i clicked the link expecting to see how much has changed, but after
viewing i've realized how little has changed. #6 (save for the lady walking in
the back) looks like it could have been shot yesterday somewhere in NY.

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tocomment
Did you notice the 1 cent oranges? Inflation is amazing.

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cunard-n
Thank you. I love these.

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tjmc
Is that Jason Calacanis in picture 10?

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TotlolRon
Not Depression-era. 1939-1943. WWII.

