Comments on: Color photos of Depression-era American small towns

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 20:48:00 +0000

If they’re square dancing, they’re doing it wrong. They’ve got the sweating down pat, though.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 20:38:00 +0000

Canton stole Brockton’s New Deal.

By: digi_owl

digi_owl — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 20:13:00 +0000

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

By: digi_owl

digi_owl — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 20:12:00 +0000

And likely only noticed the war because of the local sons being drafted.

By: Alpacaman

Alpacaman — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 19:22:00 +0000

You may have missed my point, I wasn’t trying to accuse these of being staged or inauthentic – I have little doubt that these photos are taken as they were found.

By: benher

benher — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 18:42:00 +0000

Depression era CCTV?

By: retepslluerb

retepslluerb — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 18:42:00 +0000

Actually, it was in 2010:

http://boingboing.net/2010/08/04/the-depression-in-co.html

I knew I had seen that couple before when I looked at the photos.

By: Beth Cravens

Beth Cravens — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 18:24:00 +0000

Actually the depression stretched on in rural areas that were hit the hardest by drought and erosion.

By: Nathan Hornby

Nathan Hornby — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 18:23:00 +0000

If anyone knows of something like this for the UK I’d love to know about it.

By: Nathan Hornby

Nathan Hornby — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 18:22:00 +0000

I didn’t want to be that guy, but I’m also positive that these have been year in the past year.

Worth a second look at any rate.

By: Hugh Stimson

Hugh Stimson — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 18:06:00 +0000

I’ve run into the “Couples at square dance” photo a couple of time now. It punches me in the face every time.

http://extras.denverpost.com/archive/captured.asp#photo13

By: xzzy

xzzy — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 17:16:00 +0000

All these pictures are available off the Library of Congress website, plus more. You can easily lose an afternoon typing in the names of various cities and geographical features around the country seeing what’s available.

Obviously color photos are relatively rare, but there are mountains of digitized black and white photos.

By: The Thompson Five

The Thompson Five — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:48:00 +0000

I wonder when the New Deal is going to get around to Brockton? It looks worse now than it did then.

By: mccrum

mccrum — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:24:00 +0000

Government sponsored art photography a priceless trove to future generations? Bah! More like fancypants fru fru artists who can’t get a real job without handouts!

By: retepslluerb

retepslluerb — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:22:00 +0000

Err… I though it was general consensus that the great depression was from1929 to 1939? I’d alway play 1939 to 1943 as WW II era.

Good photos, though I think Boing Boing linked to them before.

By: V

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:21:00 +0000

Reading ‘The Worst Hard Time” right now, about families who lived through the Dust bowl in the western Great Plains – Intimate stories of people who stayed through those times.

http://www.amazon.com/Worst-Hard-Time-Survived-American/dp/0618773479/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1326125425&sr=1-1

By: Guest

Guest — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:19:00 +0000

Obviously these were taken in a portrait studio, and the outdoor shots taken with advance notice, so everyone could put on their finest dust-encrusted ensembles.

Or, you, know, maybe there is more than one workable definition of candid.

By: JhmL

JhmL — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 07:46:00 +0000

Beautiful. Bowie’s ‘Young Americans’ started playing in my head immediately though. Damn you, Trier! *shakes fist*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFudBQcplj4

By: Alpacaman

Alpacaman — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 07:22:00 +0000

If a photo has notches in it at the top (like the one above) it was taken on large format (ie at least 4×5 inch) film, the notches are so you can tell which way the emulsion is facing in the dark for loading purposes. Consequently, any photos with the notches are almost certainly posed (large format cameras are not very good for candid work – it has been used for press work and photojournalism in the past with graflex cameras, but the unobtrusive thing doesn’t work very well, additionally, I am willing to bet that early colour slide film was very slow, necessitating a tripod).

In the case of a portrait (as above) it can’t be candid anyway. In fact, the above paragraph has almost no bearing on the photos in the link, they do not pretend to be candid, they are honest and in many cases beautiful photos. I just though it would be fun to share some technical info, and shed some light on the cameras used ( like this )
But really, damn, some of those are poignant.

By: Joseph Francis

Joseph Francis — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 07:18:00 +0000

I Google street-viewed the #57 Dillon, Montana one some time ago. Some of the nicer aspects of the architecture were gone, but the corner was still findable