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/

Breakfast with hawk.

A hawk was sitting on our back fence this morning, showing a keen interest in some squirrels who were darting about among the trees. I think the hawk left without breakfasting on any of the squirrels.

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/

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/

Women at War: Mrs. Smuda. 1942.

Women at war (Mrs. Smuda). Mrs. Smuda, 1942-style American mother, is up and out every morning before 6:45 a.m., ready to check in at the Frankford, Pennsylvania Arsenal. From 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., Mrs. Smuda tapers cartridge cases for 50-caliber machine gun shells. Before and after work she fills the role of mother, grandmother, and manager of this eight-room house in which she has lived for twenty-five years.

photograph: Howard Liberman, March 1942. Office of War Information - OWI.  Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division Washington, DC 20540 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print

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/

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/

Robert Frank's "The Americans"

Jonathan Day, Robert Frank's "The Americans": The Art of Documentary Photography (Intellect Books; distributed by University of Chicago Press, 2011).

from the publisher:

In the mid-1950s, Swiss-born New Yorker Robert Frank embarked on a ten-thousand-mile road trip across America, capturing thousands of photographs of all levels of a rapidly changing society. The resultant photo book, The Americans, represents a seminal moment in both photography and in America's understanding of itself. To mark the book’s fiftieth anniversary, Jonathan Day revisits this pivotal work and contributes a thoughtful and revealing critical commentary. Though the importance of The Americans has been widely acknowledged, it still retains much of its mystery. This comprehensive analysis places it thoroughly in the context of contemporary photography, literature, music, and advertising from its own period through the present.

You're Breaking Up . . .

Preaching to the Crowd

Dorothea Lange, "Preaching to the Crowd," San Francisco, California, April 1939. Farm Security Administration / Office of War Information. Library of Congress LC-USF34- 019256-C

I am in San Francisco this week for a conference, and took a few moments in the hotel to browse through the online collection of FSA-OWI photographs at the Library of Congress, a national treasure.

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

Lester on Political Photography

Paul Martin Lester, On Floods and Photo Ops: How Herbert Hoover and George W. Bush Exploited Catastrophes (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2010).

Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday

Jack Delano, "Negro Driver Asleep under a Truck," 1940. From the FSA photography collection at the Library of Congress. Notes on the photograph indicate that it was taken in Washington, D.C., in June 1940, and provide this description: "Negro driver asleep under a truck. There are no sleeping accomodations for Negroes at this service station. On U.S. 1."

4th of July, State College

In recent weeks, it has been reported with sadness that because of the financial crisis, corporate sponsorship of the local fireworks show, reportedly the biggest such private 4th of July fireworks show in the United States, will be smaller this year.

Shown here are two photographs from the Farm Security Administration collection at the Library of Congress. The photographs are both by Edwin Rosskam, and were taken in State College, Pennsylvania on July 4, 1941. Rain during the day had threatened the annual 4th of July fireman's carnival downtown.

The first photograph shows an evening bingo game in progress on a main street. The second shows a group of small boys with cap pistols in a doorway earlier on the same day.

Happy 4th of July.