Denver Post: Color photographs from 1939-43

So many mostly skinny people.

 

The quality of these pictures from so long ago is stunning.

 

In No. 13, it looks like the guys on either side of the picture are about to throw down, 40s style.

No. 58 looks like the Marlboro Man.

 

Wow. Those photos take my breath away. Like a time machine. Whoever talked about asking, as a child, whether people saw the world in black and white back then was spot-on. I used to wonder the same thing. I just couldn't imagine the pre-World War II era in color. Whenver I see something old - like a 19th Century house or Wrigley Field or even a natural landscape, I try to tell myself that this is what people looked at it 100 years ago saw, and I have difficulty convincing myself that that's true.

Great find.

 

The amount of stuff available online might as well be infinite. Those who winnow out the good stuff have earned clicks.

I've never understood the claim that many people dream in black-and-white. Before the invention of photography, how could the concept of black-and-white even exist?

 

Very few folks smiled when photographed back in those days.

In #6, on the window above the Brockton Enterprise, is "W.B. Mason," the office supply chain. Brockton, MA, happens to be where Mason was founded, according to its website.

http://www.wbmason.com/AboutUs/index.html

 

I saw some of those photos at the Smithsonian four or five years ago. The ones in D.C. looked so much sharper than these online pics. The clarity matched with those faces felt jarring.

 

Incredible. Really. Thank you for sharing.

 

Image 6 just proves that newspapers were giving their content away for free long before the Internet.

 

I thought using the term "African American" in the descriptions was a bit silly. I don't understand why it'd be necessary to note race, for one, but if you're going to do it, use the terms from the time.

In the one of the school kids singing, it jumped out at me that about a third were barefoot. And they had corporate sponsorship.

The photo of the family eating was creepy to me for some reason. I couldn't help but wonder why, exactly, the photog wandered by.

 

Some haaaard women there.

 

Laughed when I saw that. Very early version of a blog.