America in Color from 1939-1943
 

What an amazing set of pictures. Thanks for sharing!

Hot damn, what a find.

I'll have to give it more attention when I've got some more free time, because what a treasure.

So far, I'm loving how the news was relayed at Brockton Enterprises. We have something similar at my building that displays changing headline stories from the internet. That this sort of thing was done by hand boggles my mind.


Oh, and that Jack Whinery is one fine-lookin' fella.

I guess the five kids mean he was straight, but perhaps it was just the mores of the day that forced him into an unwanted marriage. Even if he wasn't playing for our team - damn he was hot!

Ya know, in a great depression kinda way. :rolleyes:

Unpossible. It is well known that the world was black and white until about 1958 when 20 years of color movies proved it wasn't just a passing fad and the United Nations finally passed colorization.

Lovely color and amazing photographs! I loved seeing the 1930's dress prints in vivid color. Even the reproductions are faded like the quilts these fabrics sometimes became.

It is interesting that the West is sparsely represented here. There is one picture from California.

I like it. I certainly do.
:)

Ilikeit!

Is this Rosie The Riveter?

I almost made a joke that would have best been in the tasteless joke thread and even then I'd probably have gotten in trouble.

:snap: :cheers:

What an incredible find! Fantastic photos!

Oh, Cmon! We have to hear this one.

By the way, the entire 1700 photograph FSA color photo archive is available online at the Library of Congress:

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/search?s...&c=100&co=fsac

If you want to see the 170,000 black and white photographs produced by the same program that would be here:

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/search?st=grid&c=100&co=fsa

If old color photographs fascinate you, you might also be interested in these from Russia in the period 1906-1915:

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/service/pnp/pp...800/04842r.jpg

Example:



The online catalog of the Prints & Photographs Reading Room is, in general, just an amazing resource.

Trust me, you don't. I'm ashamed of me.

my dad was already off fighting the war at the tender age of 19 or 20 when a lot of these pictures were taken. an incredible look at the world he often talked about, but I could never truly imagine.

even seeing it, its hard to imagine

endless thanks for those

One of them.

Ooooo.... Thanks!

Well, you've killed my cat, but I'll let it go for now. ;)

Links only to the image.

Whoops. It is the Prokudin-Gorskii Collection, accessible from the general link at the end of my post.

But here's the gallery link for that collection:

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/search?s...&c=100&co=prok

It's funny how easy it is to think that these people lived black and white lives.

It's funny how easy it is to forget that color is entirely a product of our brain and our perception, and does not exist in nature.

They DID live in a black and white world, as do we. Color is added by us.


[/obnoxious tangent]



oh, but one of the things I loved about Wings of Desire is that the angels could see only in black and white, because it revealed the true nature of things (black and white photography is wonderful for this). Yet the one angel was so envious of humans, who experienced the universe in color.

Um, color is real. Subjective, but real.

My mother remembers the 30's (and a good portion of the 20's as well). She assurs me that things were in color back then, just like now.

Did they talk too?

Say, OT to everyone but me, does your Mom have any recollection of Valentino being around or when he died? Just curious!

She was only two years old, so I doubt it.

Okay, "a good portion of the 20's" led me to assume otherwise, sorry! I just made an ass out of myself!

CP already commented but I'm curious about this comment as well. Perception of color can vary but "color" is an objective attribute in the sense that the electromagnetic wavelengths emitted and reflected are the same regardless of observer.

True, but can the same be said for the rods and cones in the eye of the observer?

As I said, "perception of color can vary." But it is entirely possible to determine that something is green without rods and cones being involved.

But that is not the same thing as the world is black and white and color is simply a creation of perception. Any more than light is a creation of perception since the ability to see it can vary from person to person.

No you didn't. I should have said "part of the 20's" instead of "a good portion of the 20's". I typed without really thinking about it.

Indeed. If what iSm said were true, then those paint color matching machines at the hardware stores wouldn't work.

Or, more to the point, even if you DO accept the philosophically valid position that color is only perception, it does not therefore follow that black and white is a "truer" state of the world since describing things as black and white still requires accepting 99.999999% of what makes color "only perception" as true. If you aren't acknowledging the perception of color as true, than why are you acknowledging the perception of shape, space, depth, time, matter, opacity, density, etc., etc. as true?

In case anyone cares, the devices are called a spectrophotometer (they are used quite a bit in the printing industry).

If you want, I can bore you silly with discussions on color theory, additive vs. subtractive color, etc. Hey: I took an entire course on this, I have to impress somebody with my knowledge.