Get in the Scrap

Salvage. School children get in the scrap. The school children of America were officially organized for a nationwide salvage program starting on Monday, October 5, 1942. The children are going into the field as a junior army engaged in a major campaign for victory. Plans included the laying out of definite areas in each community to be assigned to specific groups of children. Plans were also made for holding meetings, collecting scrap, storing it and getting it to central points for shipment. Roanoke, Virginia has already gotten its program underway. This picture shows scrap being dug out of an attic by the "junior commandos." Photo by Howard Liberman. October 1942. Office of War Information. FSA-OWI Collection, Library of Congress.  http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/oem2002004863/PP/

Burning the Autumn Leaves, 1940.

Jack Delano. Burning the Autumn Leaves on Broadway in Norwich, Connecticut. October 1940. FSA-OWI Collection, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/fsa2000023717/PP/

Football Season, 1937.

John Vachon. Spectators at football game, Annapolis, Maryland. November 1937.  FSA-OWI Collection, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/fsa1997002916/PP/ 

John Vachon. Watching Columbia-Navy football game, Annapolis, Maryland. November 1937. FSA-OWI Collection, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/fsa1997002915/PP/

Salvage Campaign, 1942.

Alfred T. Palmer. Annette del Sur public[iz]ing salvage campaign in yard of Douglas Aircraft Company, Long Beach, California. October 1942. FSA-OWI Collection, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.  http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/fsa1992001591/PP/

At the Wharves, Annapolis. 1937.

John Vachon. Men at the wharves, Annapolis, Maryland. November 1937. FSA-OWI Collection, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/fsa1997002872/PP/

 John Vachon. Untitled photo, possibly related to: Men at the wharves, Annapolis, Maryland. November 1937. FSA-OWI Collection, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/fsa1997002873/PP/

On to New Hampshire

John Collier. A view looking northeast from the fire tower manned by Barbara Mortensen, a fire and airplane lookout on Pine Mountain, Gorham vicinity, N.H. June 1943. Color transparency. FSA-OWI Collection, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/fsa1992001257/PP/

Women Workers in the Roundhouse

Jack Delano. Women workers employed as wipers in the roundhouse having lunch in their rest room, C. & N.W. R.R., Clinton, Iowa. April 1943. Color transparency. FSA-OWI Collection, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/fsa1992001032/PP/

Men Working Together

"A poster comes to life. A couple of groundhogs get a liberal education from a Navy pilot as Aviation-radio Chief John Marshall Evans (left) escorts welder George Woolslayer and Sergeant French L. Vineyard (right) through his navy post. The three colleagues of the "Men Working Together" poster learned how the war can be won only by the united efforts of soldier, sailor and worker, during their introductions to one another's spheres of activity. Allegheny- Steel, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania."  August 1942. Alfred T. Palmer, photographer. FSA-OWI Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Poster. "Men Working Together!" Office for Emergency Management. Division of Information, 1941. World War II Poster Collection. Digitized Poster Collections, Northwestern University Library.

The "Men Working Together" poster is discussed in Posters for Peace (figure 12, p. 32). When the Farm Security Administration (FSA) photography project moved to the Office of War Information (OWI) with America's engagement in World War II, along with poster artists from the Works Progress Administration (WPA), themes that had stimulated New Deal posters were adapted to serve the national security emergency.

Polish Immigrant Husking Corn

John Collier. "Polish Immigrant Husking Corn." Greenfield (vicinity), Connecticut. October 1941. FSA-OWI photo collection, Library of Congress. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/fsa2000051872/PP/

Tulare County Mother 1939

Dorothea Lange, Tulare County. Farm Security Administration camp (FSA) for migratory agricultural workers at Farmersville. Mother and child, come to California from Oklahoma. They have six children, aged two to nineteen years. The mother finished the eighth grade in school. They left their farming in Chicasha in the fall of 1936 to go to Arizona to pick cotton. They returned to Oklahoma to try again; failed and re-entered California February 27, 1938 to pick peas under a labor contractor. The father is chairman of camp council.

Photograph by Dorothea Lange.

May 1939.  LC-USF34-019660-D (b&w film nitrate neg.) LC-DIG-fsa-8b33682 (digital file from original neg.)

May Is for Mowing, Too

Russell Lee, Worker Mowing Grass at the Agua Fria Migratory Labor Camp, Arizona. May 1940. FSA-OWI photography collection, Library of Congress. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/fsa1998000719/PP/

April Means Mowing

John Vachon, Man mowing lawn, Grundy Center, Iowa. April 1940. FSA-OWI Collection, Library of Congress.

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/fsa/item/fsa1997006147/PP/

Arthur Rothstein, "Fruit tramps from California who have come to the Yakima Valley for apple thinning. Yakima, Washington." July 1936. FSA-OWI Collection, Library of Congress. 

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/fsa/item/fsa1998019470/PP/

Old Age in Pennsylvania, 1936

Dorothea Lange, "Old Age" near Washington, Pennsylvania. July 1936. FSA-OWI collection, Library of Congress.
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/fsa/item/fsa1998021755/PP/

Apple Picking

Picking apples. Camden County, New Jersey.

Rothstein, Arthur, 1915-1985, photographer. October 1938.

FSA-OWI collection, Library of Congress.

fsa 8b17177 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/fsa.8b17177

In our course in American Rhetoric in the New Deal Era, 1932-1945, we have recently read John Steinbeck's In Dubious Battle, which describes a strike in California apple orchards in the period.

Model T Bliss, Ithaca

Paul Carter, "Ithaca, New York. Interior of a shack in which a man lived for twenty-five years. His wife would not let him live with her. She was mad at him for having backed a Model T Ford over her on their honeymoon." (1936 June).

Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection. LC-USF341- 011053-B. fsa 8c51333 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/fsa.8c51333

Shepherd with His Horse and Dog

Russell Lee, "Shepherd with his horse and dog on Gravelly Range, Madison County, Montana," August 1942." LC-USW36-847 B - Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Collection -- Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print

Dairy Cat, 1939

Arthur Rothstein, "Milker gives pet cat some milk direct from cow, Brandtjen Dairy Farm, Dakota County, Minnesota." Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection (Library of Congress. September 1939.

Free Labor Will Win

Labor Day poster. Labor Day poster distributed to war plants and labor organizations. The original is twenty-eight and one-half inches by forty inches and is printed in full color. It was designed by the Office of War Information (OWI) from a photograph especially arranged by Anton Bruehl, well-known photographer. From the FSA-OWI collection at the Library of Congress. (1942)

It Has Snowed Before

photo: Arthur Rothstein, "Automobiles in Snow Drifts, Chillicothe, Ohio, February 1940," FSA-OWI collection, Library of Congress.