national photography archives

[kay9_medic]

Might be interesting for the historical buffs

Photos of Neosho and Newton County circa 1935-1945, America from the Great Depression to World War II: Black-and-White Photographs from the FSA-OWI.

Link Here (http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/f?fsaall:0:./temp/~ammem_BeuO:) [lcweb2.loc.gov]

[joetowngirl]

http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query

Try this link. I think it's the same place but the link in your post didn't work.

There are several places online with Neosho vintage pics if you search for them!


Hmm.....my link didn't work either; but this one should and then query Neosho and/or Newton County.


http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html

[kay9_medic]

Yep Joetowngirl, lcweb2.loc.gov and memory.loc.gov resolve out to the same site. Can't hyperlink down to Neosho because of some goofy cgi querying.

[J. Werneke]

Thanks Kay9 and joetowngirl,

These are really fun to look through!

[kay9_medic]

Now that I've taken the tour (no mean feat on a crappy dialup!) I thought I would share a bit. I've always had a love of photography.

To me, this photo is iconic of the Depression years - a 32 year old destitute mother in a migrant farm worker camp in California. One of Dorothea Lange's most famous photographs.

[kay9_medic]

Right as 1930s came to a close, Kodak came out with Kodachrome film. It was the first viable commercial color film available to the general public.

Funny thing about color photography.

I was born in 1961, and I always had some sense that color was invented with me. Most of the photos of my parents and family were in black in white before my birth and most photos taken afterward were in color. There was no such thing as a color photo in a newspaper... only the Sunday funnies were in color. TV was black and white. If you owned a color TV set (they were expensive) only a few shows were in color. Magazine covers usually were in color, but most of the pages and many of the ads were b/w. I had no idea people were in color before the middle of the twentieth century.

Who knew?

My folks bought their first color TV sometime around 1968. The first time I watched the Wizard of Oz, I thought they invented color photography in the middle of filming the movie.

[joetowngirl]

You know, K9, I was born in '61 too but my early years were all documented in black and white. Our family must not have gone to color film until about 1965 or 1966 although my parents do still have some home movies that were color. Someday I hope to have those old 8mm (I think) films converted to DVD so I can watch them again and show them to my kids.

I know that my grandparents had color television before we did and the first thing in color I remember watching was the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. Second was the Wonderful World of Disney on Sunday nights; my grandparents liked my parents to bring me over to see it in color. Third would be Wizard of Oz.

Later, maybe about 1968 or 1969 we got our first color set.

I do remember when TV Guide marked color programs with "C" for color; then it changed to "B&W" for black and white programs.

Before the common folk had easy access to affordable color film, they used to get "colored" portrait where colors were added in the processing. I have a few of these from my parents youth and they always call them "dime store pictures".

[kay9_medic]

Photographer Charles Cushman, a photograph of his new 1938 Ford Deluxe coupe beside the new orange Golden Gate Bridge.

This might be my favorite Ford coupe. The headlights haven't quite melted all the way into the fenders yet.

[kay9_medic]

Another Cushman photo.

Hard to believe now, but during the 1930's over half of the US population lived on farms and in small towns.

[joetowngirl]

This is one of my earliest color pics.....my birthday in 1966 or 1967, not sure which. This ran earlier this year in a little Remember When piece for the KC Star about birthday parties of the past!

[kay9_medic]

Mothers often made clothes for the kids from chicken feed sacks, as with these girls at the Vermont State Fair.

My grandmother (93 and sharp as a tack) tells me that you would go to the feed store and buy the feed in 50lb sacks made from printed cotton. The choices were pretty much limited to yellow, blue and red, with green a real find. Since the feed store owner could not specify what patterns and colors he wanted, it was a grab bag. She remembers wearing pale blue dresses made of a nice blue with a white flower print, stitched up on a Singer sewing machine that was foot powered. She also said that her mother made the girl's underpants from the end of the sack that had "Purina" printed on it, and for years she thought that Purina was a brand of underwear.

[kay9_medic]

Grandmothers still made sure that their teenaged granddaughters didn’t hang out at the horse auctions with the menfolk.

Look how mad grandma is and how her granddaughter is stomping away.

[kay9_medic]

C-D Cattle Ranch near Dillon, Montana.

What you may think is a windmill pictured here is no such thing. It's a wind charger. If it were a windmill, you'd see a long pole-like object extending down from the windmill head at the top to the bottom of the tower, beneath which would have been a well, and the propeller would have looked like a large fan.

From the late 30s until the mid-50s these wind-powered electrical generators were the sole source of power for many rural people. They provided either 32v or 110v direct current, sufficient to run lights, a radio, a water pump, and a washing machine. Refrigerators and water heaters were always run on propane (bottled) gas because the wind chargers couldn't provide enough juice for them. Furnaces and kitchen ranges were either wood/coal-fired or propane.

[kay9_medic]

Most people traveled by train, but the newly emerging airlines like TWA were already flying four-engine Boeing Stratoliners out of Chicago Midway, for those wealthy enough to afford to fly.

[kay9_medic]

Dances were pretty simple affairs, with perhaps a fiddler and guitarist. McIntosh County Oklahoma.

[kay9_medic]

Another Cushman photo, showing Japanese Day at the World's Fair.

The folks pictured don't know it yet, but within two years they'll be forcibly relocated to concentration camps by their own government.

[kay9_medic]

And the closer.

Most of America at the time, even being on the cusp of modernity, still held some nostalgic myths about rural life. And they saw it in color, for the very first time.

The reality was that most rural folk endured grinding poverty during the Depression years.

Thus concludes my stroll through the 1930s.

[kay9_medic]

One other note about the color film.

Not just anybody could buy this film. It cost $5 per roll and had to be sent to Rochester, New York for development. By comparison, in 1938 Congress established the first minimum wage at 25 cents per hour, so $5 represented half a week’s work. But the Farm Security Administration sent out about a dozen photographers with this new film. Some commercial photographers like Samuel Gottscho and the well-to-do amateur, Charles Cushman also embraced this new technology.

[kay9_medic]

Originally posted by joetowngirl
[...] Second was the Wonderful World of Disney on Sunday nights; my grandparents liked my parents to bring me over to see it in color. Third would be Wizard of Oz.

[...] I do remember when TV Guide marked color programs with "C" for color; then it changed to "B&W" for black and white programs.


I do remember the TV Guide change too, now that you mention it. Wonderful World of Disney was a Sunday night fixture in our house. My mother would watch it with us while she did her ironing and as I remember it, Wild Kingdom came on right before Disney. It was a tough go being rural and we could only receive three TV channels on the B&W. Two of them always had snow and a wavery picture but you could kind of make it out.

The kids these days with 200 picture perfect cable channels just don't know what they were missing.

[joetowngirl]

Interesting pics, K9. I have enjoyed looking at all the pics. I got interested enough to research a little and found this, the first color picture in history:














This Color Photograph was made in 1907 in France. Today some of the most beautiful color photographs are the oldest: produced by the the Autochrome Process. The emulsion was made with dried potato dust.

[Scutter]

In 1948, Kansas City had two television stations, neither of which could be received in this area. In 1952, there were two television stations in Tulsa and one in Springfield in 1953 that could be watched in this area with high antennas (200 to 250 feet). The first local station was Pittsburg which came on line in 1954.

[wuli]

Interesting that the first color photograph appears to be of lost travelers, or perhaps an engineer type reading a manual trying to figure out how to put gas in…Because he is ouT!

I like the dancing photograph too. The gal on the far left has been in every generation since the beginning of time and so has the guy standing by her, hand on chin trying to figure her out!

She obviously would rather be any place other than where she is…Or would she? I for sure know what he is thinking.

[kay9_medic]

Couple of other archives I've run across

Life Magazine partnered with Google and put some of their archives online, you can find it here: http://images.google.com/hosted/life. Photos and etchings going back to the mid 18th century. It's fascinating. I can spend all day poking around.

This archive (http://www.nyc-architecture.com/SPEC/GAL-BW.htm) shows New York City architecture dating from the turn of the 20th century.

I have to hand it to the old photographers. Although they could make some minor adjustments during the film developing, it was pretty much either get it exactly right at the shutter snap or lose the shot entirely.

[David Holley]

K9,

Those are some fantastic pictures. Thanks for posting.

[Truthseeker]

a 32 year old destitute mother in a migrant farm worker camp in California

I can't remember what show I was watching one day, but it was about this pic you posted, and the youngest child was telling the story about it, and I remember the commentator asking if they had posed for the pic, which they did not. The photographer just happended to be there at the right time. I wish I could remember what show it was on. Did anybody else watch that show?

[shinobi]

I saw that show not long ago. It was on the History Channel and was about the Depression. Very moving story.

[David Holley]

It was on the History Channel and was on the dust bowl and why many people went to California looking for the promise land only to find out that is was'nt. It was very intersting how the combination of the drought and farming practices at the time contributed to the massive dust bowl. They said it is being repeated today in parts of China. It was a good and informative show.

[shinobi]

Kalifornia isn't the promised land????:worry:

[kay9_medic]

Yep. Read Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath and Studs Terkel, Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression if you get a chance. What is old is new...

Something they don't talk about in the history texts in school is just how close the government was to being overthrown by big business and the bankers (supporters of Mussolini-style Fascism), and the turmoil that took place in the years after Roosevelt took office. Read Upton Sinclair and be shocked.

[Scutter]

Or how close the country was to open rebellion between 1930 and 1936. When a large segment of the population has lost everything, then these folks have nothing to lose. That lesson was not lost on the people in Washington. Trust that a huge sigh of relief was felt there when Huey P. Long was murdered in Baton Rouge. Share The Wealth was gaining enough momentium to scare the pants off of The Powers That Be.

[Truthseeker]

Thanks for the info on the pic, guys. I knew I had seen it somewhere, but couldn't remember where. And you're right, it was a very moving story.

[jimmie]

Your mention of the photograph of that "Dust Bowl Mother, " brought back a conversation I had with my sister who lived in California most of her adult life. She was on the tail end of that Okie migration. She lived in those migrant camps with her husband and baby son. She met that woman made famous in that photograph and, for all her life, was friends with one of that woman's sons (my sister is gone now, but I'm sure it was the woman's son...I could be corrected on that but I don't think so).

Let me assure you, while her photograph was a picture of hoplessness, that family like my own sister turned out very well. My sister and the lady's son shared many tales and speak with great fondness of their days in the migrant camps. In face, the very camp in which they lived was used in the film "Grapes of Wrath." My sister would laugh and talk about the big "hump" that was at the gate of the camp. In the movie, that old Joad vehicle hit that hump.

A few years ago, I spent a week with my sister in California. She gave me a tour of her life in California and one of the highlights was visiting that migrant camp which is still there.

It was a great photograph—a haunting photograph, but it brings wonderful memories to me.

Thanks for bringing up the subject.

[joetowngirl]

Yep. Read Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath and Studs Terkel, Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression if you get a chance. What is old is new...

Something they don't talk about in the history texts in school is just how close the government was to being overthrown by big business and the bankers (supporters of Mussolini-style Fascism), and the turmoil that took place in the years after Roosevelt took office. Read Upton Sinclair and be shocked.

I second the recommendation for Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath and Studs Terkel; both are excellent.

Another interesting read is "Since Yesterday: The 1930's in America" by Frederick Lewis Allen.

[jimmie]

May I direct you to this website: http://www.weedpatchcamp.com/

God, I love reading things about Weed Patch. The name came from the people in the camp. There was a long row of rural mailboxes near the camp for the workers to use. The area around all those mailboxes was not cared for and weeds grew head high up around the boxes. The ladies used to laugh and say, "Let's go down to the weedpatch and get the mail." Thus was born the name for the little community.

[kay9_medic]

May I direct you to this website: http://www.weedpatchcamp.com/


Great site, thanks!

In 2000, I took three days off work and drove as much of the old Route 66 as was drivable from Riverside county to the Arizona border. There are still a few relics and ruins on the roadside from the old days, gas stations and motels and such, but not many. One of my stops was an old migrant camp, I thought it was the one mentioned in Steinbeck's book but the one I visited was long abandoned. It might have just been a CCC camp. I didn't know of the Weed Patch Camp in Bakersfield. I stopped at as many of the landmarks as I could find in my research and camped on top of the old volcano out there in the desert. Spooky place to camp alone. That desert is full of ghosts... the migrants buried their dead all along the roadside as they traveled.

[Tim Lewis]

Found a cool video on Historic Neosho...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QTo6hVTImY

[shinobi]

OMG! Faces from the past... We moved here in '60 but I remember.
Brought a tear to my eye.

[Truthseeker]

Cool video!