Colour from 1940

[Philip]

What an amazing trove of ca 1940 colour images! (I don't remember if this was posted earlier.)

http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2010/07/26/captured-america-in-color-from-1939-1943/

[Mike Kovacs]

I think they might have been.

Looking now, my first reaction is just how much our standard of living as a whole has improved over 70 years. Many of these people pictured lived a hard life.

[LarryD]

A hard life is what built the greatest generation.

[Mike Kovacs]

Yup as opposed to the "me me me generation" - mine

[LarryD]

Not sure about that Mike. Your generation and my generation are only a few years apart. We did not have color TV until I was in my teens and then 2 channels. so we went out and did things like hunt and fish. :-) I got my first job selling news papers on the corner when I was 12.

[Philip]

When I look at pictures like that, I am struck by the strength of the people, and the simple, respectable, attainable pleasures of their lives.

My parents were both born in the 1910s. My siblings and I were all born in the 1940s and '50s.  My parents both lived to their late 80s; their generation lived longer than any previous one. I figure my generation won't get as old as they did.  And I figure that was because they worked harder than we did. I'm a lazy s.o.b. compared to my father who, at 80, could easily out-work me at half his age.

[Todd G]

You can search through many of the FSA's 1600 color photos from that period at the Library of Congress site here:

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/fsachtml/fsowhome.html

Many of the 160,000+ BW photos are there too.  It's fascinating to look at the links for neighboring negative numbers, especially for the 35mm films, since you can see the actual shooting sequences.   Roy Styker, the director, often "killed" 35mm negatives he thought unworthy of inclusion in the archive by punching a hole in the negative.  Photographer John Vachon seemed to like to play a game of snapping a photo of the "accomodations" in all of the hotel rooms he stayed in while on the road, whether it was a chamber pot or a genuine flush toilet.  Stryker hole-punched most all of these, but they still give an interesting perspective on life in the times. 

Vachon also liked to capture graffiti on occasion.  One of my favorites is a chalk drawing on the side of a railroad boxcar, from around 1938, depicting Hilter and Mussolini giving the fascist salute faced off with Uncle Sam returning a thumb-to-the-nose salute.

[Philip]

Oh yeah -- now that's the mother lode.