Color pictures from the Great Depression

[giza]

Here are two of storefronts that I especially liked:





There are 68 more pictures on the Denver Post. The photographs encompass everything from people to places to farms to train yards.

Looking at some of the pictures, it's pretty amazing to see how people lived back then. And all the advertising in the picture with the school children? Yeah, I don't think that'd go over too well today.

Comments

[athauglas.livejournal.com]

Wow!

[twitchdawoof.livejournal.com]

Surprised to see the Vermont State Fair in there! Been there a few times as a kid.

[alohawolf.livejournal.com]

I posted some of these photos when I found them on the LOC website, we are lucky this was taken before 1946 and on Kodachrome, as the color has been preserved forever (more or less).

I worry that the first couple generations of digital images will disappear into the ether, I still largely shoot film.

[neillparatzo.livejournal.com]

Wow, Rosie the Riveter.

[tgeller.livejournal.com]

It's a good reminder that colors were just as bright back then, and that printed materials weren't always scratched and degraded. It's natural to think so, since so much of what we have from that era is, well, messed up.

You'll have to see my archives if you ever make it to Oberlin.

[greenreaper.livejournal.com]

The saturation is very distinctive - certainly gives you that "old picture postcard" feel. The dam provides a very impressive contrast to the "simple" living depicted in the rest of the photos.

[alohawolf.livejournal.com]

It's the magic of Kodachrome, the film has archival color, I wonder how many of the digital images we have now will stand the test of time so well.

[mapdark.livejournal.com]

The quality of these pictures almost makes you think they were taken recently!


It's fun to see pictures from that era in colour!
iT,s so rare.

[ionotter.livejournal.com]

It is so incredibly rare to see color photos from that time period, that I seriously felt NO connection to the people or the era. But seeing things in color, it almost seems unreal. Like I could suddenly understand my mother and my father in a way I've never felt before.

People back then didn't seem..."real". They were always ghosts in the pictures.

To see people eating, sleeping, working...in living color...

It's a shock to the system. Truly.

And a good one, too.

[ionotter.livejournal.com]

Also, 5 cents for 1 grapefruit???

Wow...WOW!

That is a fortune. Truly, they were luxury items.

[skirtandzy.livejournal.com]

Wow, such an important time in our history.
These pictures are just impressive., and they really let you take a look through the eyes of those who saw these.

[neillparatzo.livejournal.com]

While I agree in principle, let's not forget the 2008 coal ash disaster happened at a TVA plant.

[unclekage.livejournal.com]

A lot of these spark a sense of familiarity in me. Alabama in the 1960's had not changed very much from the way these images appear.

I'm amazed!

[mbala.livejournal.com]

It hasn't changed that much.

[balloonpup.livejournal.com]

...that second picture looks like the town I live in now...

[tilt-longtail.livejournal.com]

WOW those are neat old pix... thanx for posting

[spottacus.livejournal.com]

The sadness in the faces matches what I see around unemployed friends in silicon valley these days. Also, amazing to see how hand-lettered all the signs are, and primitive the machines are (even the flying machines). It's a miracle that this society was only 30 years from the moon.

[gatcat.livejournal.com]

Thanks bunches for sharing that. I'm utterly delighted.

I believe the advertising you noticed is probably just from the stage sponsors at the Pie Town Fair. Not too different from how fair stages look today, including those which host performances by schoolkids.