Color photos of America from the 30s and 40s

[Telperion]

Back in the 30s and 40s the Farm Service Administration sent photographers to capture the effects of the Great Depression on America.  Around 700 of these pictures were taken on color slides, mostly forgotten until recently.  This is a set of color slides taken for the Farm Service Administration (browsing this was part of why I asking about Kodachrome).  Art, is that you in any of those pictures?

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/boundforglory/glory-exhibit.html

[jefnvk]

Dang, some of those are clearer and crisper than many pictures taken today.

[280plus]

Very nice. FYI in FDR's museum in Hyde Park, NY there is also a collection of these Gov't depression pictures. They are all in B&W though IIRC...

[El Tejon]

They grew peaches in Colorado?  Thought it would be too desolate.  Learn new stuff everyday.

Thanks for the link.

[TarpleyG]

Dang, some of those are clearer and crisper than many pictures taken today.

A properly exposed slide takes on an almost 3D-like quality.  Something film cannot do and something digital will likely not be able to duplicate either.  I still think slides are the best way to go if you want a real picture.  Down side is that slides are very unforgiving and you can screw up a shot a lot easier than with film.  Up until the last couple of years, magazine photogs still used slides for everything.  I think they are using digital now with the exception of magazines like Nat'l Geographic (could be wring there too).

Greg

[garyk/nm]

The photos of the Pie Town NM area don't look much different from today. I've likely met some of those folks' kids and grandkids.  
The P-51 in flight is absolutely incredible!
Thank you for posting this.

[K Frame]

What I didn't realize is that during WW II, a lot of footage shot by combat cameramen was actually in color. It was processed in Gov't labs and reprinted in black and white for distribution as movie reels shown at theaters across the nation.

[K Frame]

I don't think that's a P-51 Mustang...

I think that's an A-26, the Army Air Corp's early version of the Mustang with the Allison engine.

[Werewolf]

Dang, some of those are clearer and crisper than many pictures taken today.

A properly exposed slide takes on an almost 3D-like quality.  Something film cannot do and something digital will likely not be able to duplicate either.  I still think slides are the best way to go if you want a real picture.  Down side is that slides are very unforgiving and you can screw up a shot a lot easier than with film.  Up until the last couple of years, magazine photogs still used slides for everything.  I think they are using digital now with the exception of magazines like Nat'l Geographic (could be wring there too).

Greg

HUHHHH?? Slides are FILM.

They're just positives instead of negatives. Not sure what you are trying to say here though I imagine you are trying to say that with a negative you can correct out some errors when making the paper print?

You can also fix some errors just by putting a bellows w/light attachment on your camera body and duplicating the slide with different exposures. I used to do this all the time. I used Kodachrome and Ectachrome and did everything in color. Then if I wanted B&W I'd just copy from the slide to whatever B&W I wanted (usually an ASA 100 or slower film for fine grain - partial to Fuji and Agfa films). Worked quite well since I rarely used paper larger than 8X11 and then just 11X14. You lose some resolution doing that but it's not really visible until you get up to the really, really large print sizes and they one must look very closely.

[TarpleyG]

I was trying to put it in layman's terms for folks that aren't photographers.

[crt360]

Great site.  I sometimes forget that the world was in color back then.  Thanks.

[grampster]

Thanks for the link, Telperion.  Those photo's really tell a story about the backbone of Americans just 60 short years ago.

[280plus]

Is there a B&W slide film available?

[Art Eatman]

I can sure remember a lot of stuff from that era.  I've plowed behind a horse, and I did my share of whittling.  I remember people coming into Austin up into WW II via hose-drawn wagons, to sell farm produce.

It hit me the other day:  I'm one-third as old as the US.  When my grandfather died at age 96 in 1981, he had gotten to half the age of the country.

Been a few changes along the way...

, Art

[grampster]

Art,
I was born in '43, but those pics sure reminded me of how it was growing up.  Brought a smile to my face.

[280plus]

I thought you guys were supposed to be old? Why you're just a couplea spring chickens...

[TarpleyG]

Is there a B&W slide film available?

No.

Greg

[Art Eatman]

280, what an accumulation of years means is that you've survived a helluva lot of mistakes.  And, of course, you've earned the right to tell nursing home jokes...

Been going through old family photos.  Got one picture of a bunch of great-uncles at a corral on the XIT ranch, back around 1900.  Another of great-grand-parents and their ten kids, taken in 1890.

Old photos can make you remember how easy life is, today, compared to what it was for past generations.  Folks today whine and complain because they don't know history of even 30 or 50 years ago, much less 100...

Art.

[Larry Ashcraft]

They grew peaches in Colorado?  Thought it would be too desolate.  Learn new stuff everyday.

They still do, mostly on the western slope.  Along with apples, plums, grapes and a bunch of other stuff.

[Mabs2]

I love the one of the guy on the horse and the one of the kids playing with wooden guns.

[Kamicosmos]

Wow, that pic of the Camp Bird mine in Ouray CO.  I drove my Jeep all through that area a couple years ago.  Certainly doesn't look like that now!

[Dave Markowitz]

I don't think that's a P-51 Mustang...

I think that's an A-26, the Army Air Corp's early version of the Mustang with the Allison engine.

It's a P-51A or an A-36 Apache.

The A-26 was the Invader twin-engined bomber.

[Art Eatman]

Looks like an early 51, given the straight-tailed fuselage.

There was an A-20 built by Douglas, an attack bomber with twin engines and a single tail.  I foprget the nickname.

There was the B-26 built by Martin, the "Marauder".  It was used in Europe.  The motto at McDill AACB at Tampa was "One a day in Tampa Bay".  Laminar-flow wing, and high stall speed.

I've seen references to an "A-26" (with a picture of an A-20), but my memory doesn't recall it from my picture-book of warplanes that I pretty well memorized during WW II.

, Art

[Art Eatman]

Addendum:  For the planes of the Army Air Corps, "P" stood for "pursuit" planes.  All single-pilot fighters, until the P-61.  "A" for "Attack" or light bombers.  "B" for medium and heavy bombers.

The Navy had a different system of designation.

Everything changed after the USAAC became the USAF and the age of jets came into being.

FWIW, my step-father went into the Air Corps in early 1942.  He went on to be a co-pilot on a B-24, flying out of Henderson Field on Guadalcanal.  I had many picture-books of all the world's airplanes...

[K Frame]

A-36s also had the straight tail, as well, according to this early photo.



What's really throwing me on the Mustang photo is the gun sponsons. Very atypical.

The A-20 was alternately known as the Boston or the Havoc.

The A-26 was the Douglas Invader.