Dancing the Night Away

Club DeLisa, Chicago. 1942. Photo by Jack Delano.

[American Memory link] to locate this image, use search terms: Chicago, dancing, music

Good Times

A young couple at a Junior Chamber of Commerce dance in San Angelo, Texas. 1940.

Photo by Russell Lee.

[American Memory link] to locate this image, use search terms: youngsters, dance

Swing Your Partner

Square dancing in New Mexico, 1940. Photo by Russell Lee.

[American Memory link] to locate this image, use search terms: new, square, dance

Home Delivery

In 1941 Chicago, these young men waited outside grocery stores - earning money by truddling home shoppers' purchases.

Photo by Russell Lee.

[American Memory link] to locate this image, use search terms: grocery, boys

Light on White

Shadows and textures.

Photo taken by Arthur Rothstein in New Hampshire, 1936.

[American Memory link] to locate this image, use search terms: new, snow, fence

Slipping & Sliding

Children with a sled. Jewett City, Connecticut. 1940.

Photo by Jack Delano.

[American Memory link] to locate this image, use search terms: sledding, children

Christmas Child

The Bronx, New York. 1942. Photo by Marjory Collins.

[American Memory link] to locate this image, use search terms: Martinetti, grandchild

Nativity

Christmas Eve, in the church. Taos, New Mexico, 1942.

Photo by John Collier.

[American Memory link] to locate this image, use search terms: Taos, Christmas

Home for Christmas

The pre-Christmas rush at the Greyhound bus depot in Washington, D.C. (1941)

Photo by John Collier.

[American Memory link] to locate this image, use search terms: Greyhound, depot, Washington

Checking It Twice

Childen in rural Idaho. October, 1939.


Photos by Dorothea Lange.

[American Memory link] to locate these images, use search terms: fruitland, children

Winter In the Country

Mailboxes on a Maryland highway, 1940.

Photo by Marion Post Wolcott.

[American Memory link] to locate this image, use search terms: Maryland, mailboxes

Let It Snow

Chillicothe, Ohio in 1940. Photo by Arthur Rothstein.

[American Memory link] to locate this image, use search terms: snow, auto

Home Canning

Mrs. Hansen, a farmer's wife in Utah, is seen with her store of home-grown, home-preserved fruits and vegetables. This photo was taken in 1940 - an era in which housewives would can 500 quarts a year to feed their families during the winter.

[photographer not identified]

[American Memory link] to locate this image, use search terms: Hansen, preserves

Milk & Mail

A crossroads near Woodstock, Vermont. Cans of milk left by farmers were collected by truck and brought into the city.

Photo taken by Marion Post Wolcott in March of 1939 or 1940.

[American Memory link] to locate this image, use search terms: Vermont, crossroads

Roughneck

An oil-field worker in Oklahoma, 1939. Photo by Russell Lee

[American Memory link] to locate this image, use search terms: oil, worker, Oklahoma

10 People, 3 Small Rooms

Taken in the "Mexican section" of San Diego in 1941. The father is an agricultural worker.

The family lives in what is described as "three small rooms, with no bath...They use an outside toilet shared with five other families." In addition to the eight children in this photo, another is on the way.

(photographer: Russell Lee)

[American Memory link] to locate this image, use search terms: two adults, eight children

More Laundry

The caption accompanying this photo is worthy of being quoted in full:
"Lititz, Pennsylvania. Mrs. R.W. (Elizabeth) Almoney, forty-seven (center rear), has had eleven children. She works as a gauge inspector at the Animal Trap Company and on Sunday does the washing. Her husband (left) works in the local chocolate factory. Daughter Arline, twenty (right), who also works at the Animal Trap Company, is cooking Sunday dinner. There are three brothers in the service, and one Boy Scout, age thirteen, in the family."

Before birth control was legal, and prior to automatic clothes washers, there was a lot more work - and a lot less play.

Photo taken in 1942 by Marjory Collins.

[American Memory link] to locate this image, use search terms: eleven, children, factory

Ford Fighter Planes

Ford's Willow Run, Michigan bomber plant. Outer wing assembly, 1942.

Photo by Ann Rosener.

[American Memory link] to locate this image, use search terms: outer, wing, panel

High Water

The old John Denver song, "Take Me Home, Country Road" makes mention of the Shenandoah River - the floodwaters of which submerged this farm near Winchester, Virginia in March 1936.

This image also brings to mind Johnny Cash's line 'How high's the water, Mama?' in the song "Five Feet High and Rising".

Photo by Arthur Rothstein.

[American Memory link] to locate this image, use search terms: Winchester, flood, waters

Gonna Soak Up the Sun

Occupants of a wartime women's residence in Arlington, Virginia sunbathe behind their building.

Photo by Esther Bubley, 1943.

[American Memory link] to locate this image, use search terms: Arlington, sunbathers

Lumberjack

This gent, a First Nations lumberjack from Canada, was photographed in Maine during the 1943 Spring pulpwood drive.

Photo by John Collier.

[American Memory link] to locate this image, use search terms: Indian, woodsman

MacKenzie King, Prime Minister

Love the shades.

Taken in Washington, D.C. during a visit by Canada's Prime Minister, MacKenzie King, in 1943.

Photo by Ann Rosener.

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[American Memory link]

to locate this image, use search terms: Prime, Minister, King

Been Fishing

Conch shells and crawfish. Key West, Florida.

Photo taken in 1938 by Arthur Rothstein.

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[American Memory link]

to locate this image, use search terms: shells, crawfish

Muscle

Members of the Coast Guard at Fort Story, Virginia, cleaning a large gun/cannon after it was fired.

Photo by Alfred T. Palmer, 1942.

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[American Memory link]

to locate this image, use search term: plenty of muscle

More Frogs

Taken in Louisiana, in 1939, by Russell Lee.

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[American Memory link]

to locate this image, use search terms: store, sign, Louisiana

Frogs

An unusual distinction.

Photo taken by John Vachon near Boonsboro, Maryland - in 1939.

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[American Memory link]

to locate this image, use search terms: sign, Boonsboro, Maryland

Typo

Oh, dear.

Photo taken by Russell Lee in San Juan, Texas. 1939.

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[American Memory link]

to locate this image, use search terms: San Juan, sign

Dreams

This photo is part of a series about those who made their living fishing New England waters in the early 1940s.

Photographer Howard Liberman's caption observes that "[m]any of the boys will follow their forefathers" and become fishermen themselves.

One wonders how this young's man life actually turned out.

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[American Memory link]

to locate this image, use search terms: New England, boys

Laundry

Texas, 1939. A child exits a "privy" while a woman washes clothes the hard way - by hand, in a tub.

The collection contains numerous photos depicting the laborious and time-consuming ways in which this task was accomplished prior to the arrival of running water, electricity, and modern appliances.

Photo by Russell Lee.

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[American Memory link]

to locate this image, use search terms: clothes, washing, Texas

Donkey Cart

New Mexico, 1940. A time in which homesteaders still used burros/donkeys as a means of transportation.

Photo by Russell Lee.

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[American Memory link]

to locate this image, use search terms: burro, cart

Mmm, Cabbage

The collection contains a series of 1942 photos documenting the processing of fresh whole cabbage into dehydrated ribbons which were then canned and shipped overseas to feed the armed forces.

In the first photo, a worker hermetically hand-seals a 2.5-gallon can. Gourmet fare it was not. Nor had routine industrial tasks become fully mechanized yet.


Photos by Russell Lee.

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[American Memory link]

to locate these images, use search terms: cabbage, can

Empties

The aftermath of a "beer party" in 1941 Oregon.

Photo by Russell Lee.

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[American Memory link]

to locate this image, use search terms: beer, celebration

Thanksgiving Dinner

Thanksgiving dinner at the home of Timothy Levy Crouch, whom the photo caption describes as a "Rogerine Quaker."

1940, Connecticut. Photo by Jack Delano.

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[American Memory link]

to locate this image, use search terms: Crouch, Thanksgiving

Anticipation

A younger son of the Timothy Levy Crouch family peeks into a pot pre-Thanksigving dinner in 1940 Ledyard, Connecticut.

Note the wood-fired stove. Other shots show the boy's father fetching firewood for the event.

Photo by Jack Delano

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[American Memory link]

to locate this image, use search terms: Crouch, Thanksgiving

Christmas Dinner

As American Thanksgiving approaches, our thoughts turn toward the many reasons we have to feel grateful.

Taken in 1936, the caption accompanying these photos reads: "Christmas dinner in the home of Earl Pauley. Near Smithfield, Iowa. Dinner consisted of potatoes, cabbage and pie." Note the lunch bucket near the top of the images.

(Photos by Russell Lee)
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[American Memory link]

to locate these images, use search terms: Earl, Pauley

Lobster Fest

Extreme lobster claw. Taken at the Fulton Fish Market in New York city, 1943.

Photo by Gordon Parks.

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[American Memory link]

to locate this image, use search terms: giant, lobster

Husband & Wife

This lovely portrait, of Mr. & Mrs. William Gaynor, was taken in 1941. The couple are dairy farmers. Other photos in the series show them milking cows and canning vegetables while their children collect potatoes from the fields.

Photo by Jack Delano.

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[American Memory link]

to locate this image, use search terms: William, Gaynor

Scantily Clad

Wrestlers at the 1941 Tunbridge, Vermont "World Fair."

Photo by Jack Delano.

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[American Memory link]

to locate this image, use search terms: Tunbridge, wrestlers

Snowy Mountains

The collection contains a dozen stunning shots of US aircraft flying over Alaskan mountains during World War II. These are A-29s near Mount McKinley.

(In 1942, Japanese forces landed on the Alaskan Aleutian island of Attu - the site of the only World War II land battle on US soil.)

Photo attributed to the U.S. Army Signal Corps., 1942.

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[American Memory link]

to locate this image, use search terms: Alaska, mountains

Long Life Butter

Land O'Lakes butter in 1941. Sixty-seven years later, this product's packaging has changed little.

Photo by John Vachon at a butter packing plant in Chicago.

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[American Memory link]

to locate this image, use search terms: butter, land, lakes

Neighbors

Chatting over the back fence in Laurium, Michigan.

Photo taken by John Vachon in 1941.

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[American Memory link]

to locate this image, use search terms: back, fence, copper

Army Supply

Whether American automobile manufacturers will survive the current economic crisis remains uncertain. Meanwhile it's interesting to recall that, back in the forties, these companies were central to the war effort.

The above photo was taken in 1942 by Arthur S. Siegel. The caption reads: "Chrysler Corporation. Dodge truck plant. Detroit, Michigan (vicinity). These long rows of Dodge Army trucks await shipment to various branches of the armed forces. Hundreds of army vehicles come off the Chrysler Corporation production lines daily."

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[American Memory link]
to locate this image, use search terms: Dodge, army, trucks

Feast

The young man in this photo is carrying "loaves of bread made from Red Cross flour at an evacuation camp." He and others at this camp in Tehran, Iran are Polish.

Photo taken in 1943 by Nick Parrino.

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[American Memory link]

to locate this image, use search terms: loaves, bread

Haircut

Pulp and paper workers in Maine, 1943. The camp handyman is giving this haircut since the nearest professional barber is 35 miles away.

Photo by John Collier.

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[American Memory link]

to locate this image, use search terms: camp, barber

Hands

The caption associated with this photo reads: "The hands of Mrs. Andrew Ostermeyer, wife of a homesteader, Woodbury County, Iowa."

Other photos explain that this 76-year-old and her 81-year-old husband had their farm re-possessed by the loan company and now live with their son.

Photo by Russell Lee, 1936.

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[American Memory link]

to locate this image, use search terms: Andrew, Ostermeyer

Fabulous Face

This striking gent, Manuel Zorra, was photographed in 1940. A fisherman of Portuguese descent, he made his home in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

According to Edwin Rosskam, the photographer, Mr. Zorra was "one of the best storytellers on the cape."

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[American Memory link]

to locate this image, use search terms: Manuel, Zorra