Depression Era and WWII Photo collection

Wow, thanks. I am reading Studs Terkel's "Hard Times" and this picture collection is fantastic.
 
I saw a few of these featured on some other website recently, but there are even more here. Fascinating stuff, and the color makes them seem even more relatable. With the way that people snap pictures on their cellphones and use apps like Instagram and it's associated filters before posting, a lot of modern pictures have a similar color palette. Interesting to see pictures that look similar to the current ones my contemporaries are posting, yet with the styles of the 30's and 40's.

Thank you for posting the link to these mickeyd.
 
Really enjoyed looking at these. I was born in 42, so I can remember some things shown in the pictures. The one thing that brings me a bit of nostalgia are the shots of a downtown, with all small mom and pop stores. The local drug store, the soda shop, the bakery, the butcher, etc. etc.

I remember as a kid going to the movie theater for the day (two full feature movies, plus cartoons, plus news.) I remember having .50 cents and spending the day at the Woolworths stores (A Five & Dime store) and walking downtown by all the stores, and always a stop at the Candy store, where they sold penny candy. Great stuff for a penny. A double dip ice cream cone was 5 cents. Lets see what would that be today? ($2.50) Someone want to figure out that inflation rate? (and that was in the late 40's)

Seeing all the industry, and infrastructure building kind of makes me sad, when I compare it to what is happening now. I also read Terkel's book.
Loved it. Only positive is the working conditions now of what is left.
 
Great photos! You can almost feel the warmth of the sun, in a way that monochrome photos can't convey.

Speaking of colors, I find it disconcerting that the photo of an African American little boy is captioned as such, while there are no qualifying adjectives on captions of photos of Caucasian children. Perhaps a little too much effort to satisfy historical convention?
 
Meadbh said:
Speaking of colors, I find it disconcerting that the photo of an African American little boy is captioned as such, while there are no qualifying adjectives on captions of photos of Caucasian children. Perhaps a little too much effort to satisfy historical convention?
Click to expand...
Perhaps the captions are transcribed directly from the original captions? That is what I assumed.
 
mickeyd, I thank you for these photos. I'm from that era, born 1936, and can relate well to these pictures. I've seen some of these before but always great to visit the past again. It just reminds me that some folks really had it rough in those days. We've come a long way haven't we?
 
Mickeyd, Thanks for the photos. I like to watch old color movies, especially westerns, because the color is so rich.

I seriously doubt that the original captions from the 1930's and 1940's used the term "African-American".
 
Super photos. I remember things being just like this, but I cannot remember when women did so much of the heavy work, though I know they did. And some of them hated to head back to the kitchen after the war.

Nothing like an old barn with a Mail pouch sign painted on it, or a sign like the one for Copenhagen in one of these photos. To a boy from a tobacco state, mucho nostalgia in tobacco. I tended it from an early age, and got paid too.

Notice the little girls in #12? I think their dresses were home sewn from feed sacks, like my girl cousins' dresses were.

Also, check out the middle guy in the Fort Knox tank crew- he looks like Joe Namath!

Question for people from the deep south-in slide 9 they are "chopping cotton". What is this operation, and what is it for?

Ha
 
Last edited:
Nice collection. Those and some more are available at the Library of Congress but it takes some digging to find them.
 
haha, the photo of the little girls in their feed sack dresses went right by me and I didn't notice. Went back to take a look and you're right. My mom used to make her everyday dresses out of feed sacks. I wouldn't call us poor but back in those days, the late 30's and the war years, people did everything they could to conserve. We lived in a small town and had our own chickens, both for eggs and fried chicken. I used to go to the Farmers Elevator (a grain holding station) with my dad to get feed and he always picked out the sacks with the patterned fabric so mom would have material to make dresses. And they called them "the good old days".
 
Major Tom said:
Oh duh. I hadn't thought of that :facepalm:
Click to expand...

Went to lunch with some folks at Megacorp, as I'm driving home I pass the 'Negro League Baseball Museum', remember thinking that's not right, when it was being constructed. Well that was the leagues name.

Would have been way to Orwellian to change it.

Times change and words change with them.

MRG
 
My father told very few stories from his childhood in the 30's and 40's small-town Texas. Over time, I came to realize there weren't many stories worth telling. Growing up in a single-parent household during hard times fostered self-sufficiency and a drive to succeed, not nostalgia.

The picture of the boy holding a board carved into a rifle reminded me of one story he did tell with some fondness, probably because it was an escape from the rather bleak realities of his home life. Daddy and his young buddies spent a lot of time in the woods with rifles like that, hunting for the Nazis preparing to attack Nacogdoches.
 
Man! Notice how many fatties there were back then? No?

The flower sack dress girls reminded me of one of the last scenes in 'Oh Brother Where Art Thou'.

Noticed the lack of ironing - much of the clothing looked right off the clothes line, with the standard cotton wrinkles. The kids, and many of the adults, had a grubby, been outside doing stuff all day look. That last picture of the carbon black factory worker was incredible.
 
calmloki said:
Man! Notice how many fatties there were back then? No?
Click to expand...

Look for the swells in the nice suits and hats, not the working stiffs. You had to be pretty well off to get the excess calories, along with holding a physically undemanding job to develop that large belt size.

Also note the lack of Golden Arches and Big Gulps... You couldn't get Krispy Kreme donuts until 1937, and packaged beer (cans and bottles) didn't really take off until 1940, the year that the "original recipe" Kentucky Fried Chicken Chicken was developed by Harland Sanders.

Good grief...
 
Wonderful pictures.

It does remind of the line that I've heard very often when talking to members of the Greatest Generation.

"We were really poor, but everybody else was poor so we didn't know it"
 
Htown Harry said:
My father told very few stories from his childhood in the 30's and 40's small-town Texas. Over time, I came to realize there weren't many stories worth telling. Growing up in a single-parent household during hard times fostered self-sufficiency and a drive to succeed, not nostalgia.
Click to expand...

I too come from parents that grew up in the depression(born in 1917), in a horrible place that was home to mine fires. As a little kid when we went back there I really thought they were taking us to hell.

My Grandmother was widowed in 1929, leaving her with 3 children to support. She became a business woman, when there were very few. Not that they were well off, but compared to many, they mostly went to bed having food to eat.

I've recently learned more about her( we lost both my wonderful Grandmothers when I was 6 or 7) what a wonderful, strong, caring, loving woman she was. So for me there are memories of my depression era family that are fond to remember.

MRG
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Qs Laptop
"Live" Tweets of World War II
Replies
1
Views
329
MuirWannabe
MuirWannabe
B
Happen to know if i should paint metal drip edge/bird stop?
Replies
3
Views
760
badatmath
B
Qs Laptop
The Best Smartphone Camera?
Replies
16
Views
703
skyking1
skyking1
S
Getting depressed about illnesses and deaths
3 4 5
Replies
103
Views
9K
brett
B
Chuckanut
The Vesuvius Project succeeds!
Replies
8
Views
291
Zona
Zona

Latest posts

Back
Top Bottom