A temporary Blast from the Past post after reediting for new information. Originally posted June 13, 2011.
Lange, Dorothea, photographer. Unemployed lumber worker goes with his wife to the bean harvest. Note social security number tattooed on his arm. Oregon. Aug, 1939. Image. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/pictures/item/fsa2000004443/PP/. (Accessed September 29, 2016.)
A public records search shows that 535-07-5248 belonged to one Thomas Cave, born July 1912, died in 1980 in Portland. Which would make him 27 years old when this picture was taken.1
Part of: Farm Security Administration – Office of War Information Photograph Collection
The Bitter Years, Wall 2 (Drought and Erosion) Corn withered by heat and chewed by grasshoppers. Terry, Montana. July, 1936.
Arthur Rothstein 5045-D
The Bitter Years, in 1962, was Edward Steichen’s last exhibition as Director of the Department of Photography at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). The images in the exhibition were personally selected by Steichen from 270,000 photos taken for the Farm Security Administration by a team of photographers employed between 1935 and 1941 to document (primarily) rural America during the Great Depression.
Image information:
Rothstein, Arthur, photographer. Corn withered by heat and chewed by grasshoppers. Terry, Montana. July, 1936. Image. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/pictures/item/fsa1998019562/PP/. (Accessed September 19, 2016.)
Call Number: LC-USF34- 005045-D [P&P]
Part of: Farm Security Administration – Office of War Information Photograph Collection
The random topic this time was earth which I used as a search term in The Commons at Flickr, changing the results from relevant to interesting, with the above image one of the early results. The Passion Flower image was sketched and painted by Sophina Gordon in the 1860s, and compiled with others into a book, Flowers, Earth’s Silent Voices,1 with select verses, published in 1865. The accompanying poem, Flowers Bless Us, was actually part of a longer poem by English poet Mary Howitt, Autumn Wild Flowers,2 which appears below. The Flowers Bless Us verses used by S. Gordon begin at “Flowers spring up by the highway.”
Tree branches and leaves, a landscape, house, and the photographer taking the picture are reflected in the eyes of an Ellis County, Texas child in June 1937.
The photographer was Dorothea Lange, who, in this reflection, was likely looking down into the viewfinder of her Graflex large format camera. The image below is from California in February, 1936.
The large format camera and her photographic talents enabled Lange to take stunning, high clarity images of her subjects, in this instance, the child of a former tenant farmer reduced to the status of a day laborer.
The Bitter Years, Wall 2 (Drought and Erosion) Eroded land on tenant’s farm. Walker County, Alabama. February, 1937.
Arthur Rothstein 25121-D
The Bitter Years, in 1962, was Edward Steichen’s last exhibition as Director of the Department of Photography at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). The images in the exhibition were personally selected by Steichen from 270,000 photos taken for the Farm Security Administration by a team of photographers employed between 1935 and 1941 to document (primarily) rural America during the Great Depression.
Image information:
Rothstein, Arthur, photographer. Eroded land on tenant’s farm. Walker County, Alabama. Feb, 1937. Image. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/pictures/item/fsa2000006786/PP/. (Accessed September 19, 2016.)
Call Number: LC-USF346- 025121-D [P&P]
Part of: Farm Security Administration – Office of War Information Photograph Collection
A temporary Blast from the Past post after reediting due to lost images. Originally posted April 15, 2009.
President of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union at Hill House, Mississippi
1936 July.
Lange, Dorothea, photographer. President of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union at Hill House, Mississippi. July, 1936. Image. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/pictures/item/fsa1998021719/PP/. (Accessed September 28, 2016.)
Call Number: LC-USF34- 009598-C [P&P]
Part of: Farm Security Administration – Office of War Information Photograph Collection
While reviewing the Eyes of the Great Depression project, this images for this post were missing. The post has been redone, with newly edited images. MpG 9/28/2016
I sometimes use Google Street View to identify locations for photos that I – or others – have taken. In this instance, I rotated a view on Teton Park Road in Grand Teton National Park from looking northwest to looking southeast… and discovered this UPS guy!
The Bitter Years, Wall 2 (Drought and Erosion)
Negro children and old home on badly eroded land near
Wadesboro, North Carolina.
December, 1938.
Marion Post Wolcott 50720E
The Bitter Years, in 1962, was Edward Steichen’s last exhibition as Director of the Department of Photography at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). The images in the exhibition were personally selected by Steichen from 270,000 photos taken for the Farm Security Administration by a team of photographers employed between 1935 and 1941 to document (primarily) rural America during the Great Depression.
Image information:
Wolcott, Marion Post, photographer. Negro children and old home on badly eroded land near Wadesboro, North Carolina. Dec, 1938. Image. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/pictures/item/fsa2000031123/PP/. (Accessed September 19, 2016.)
Call Number: LC-USF347- 050720-E-A [P&P]
Part of: Farm Security Administration – Office of War Information Photograph Collection
This work1, from Yale University Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, was essentially created by hand painting over a photograph by Andrew J. Russell taken in the middle of the American Civil War. The U.S. Library of Congress has a copy of the photograph2 (below) without the artistic embellishments.
Description on back of image:
United States Military Railway Department.
Construction and Transportation
No. 21. Expedients for Crossing Streams. – No. 21 represents a pair of small pontoons, designed to facilitate scouting operations. They should be about 10 inches diameter, and 7 or 8 feet long. They can be carried by a strap around the waist, and concealed by an overcoat. A boat can be made of these by running poles through the loops, and then placing sticks across. They were originally designed for the use of surveying parties, but for scouting expeditions they may be of much value.
