America in Colour 1939/1943

[Les de B]

As most family researchers enjoy general history too, I thought I might like to share this site with you. Not so much for researching, but just to have a look back around 1939/1943, and see how Americans worked and lived.

All the photo's are in colour, and the quality is excellent, as though they were taken only yesterday.
Hope you enjoy;

http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2010/07/26/captured-america-in-color-from-1939-1943/

Les

[charlotteCH]

Les, Thank you for that link.  Those pics are wonderful.

Do you think the USA Board Mod. might include that site in the resources?  It gives such an insight into life then.

charlotte

[johnnyboy]

Hi Les and Charlotte:

Thanks for that link. Talk about vivid color!

The color pictures on the Denver Post website were among 1,600 color photos taken under the auspices of the Farm Security Administration, which was a New Deal agency set up to aid impoverished American farmers, sometimes by settling them on better land.

Here's the link to the full collection of these color photos on the Library of Congress website:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsachtml/fsowhome.html

The pictures are indexed and are searchable by subject, photographer, photographer, and location.

Part of the FSA's charge was to document conditions in rural America (while giving work to struggling photographers). The Library of Congress website also has 164,000 negatives of black and white photos taken from 1935 to 1945.

This is a link to the FSA's black and white collection (also triple  indexed) on the Library of Congress website:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsahtml/fahome.html

Wikipedia has an article on the Farm Security Administration: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farm_Security_Administration.

Regards,
John 

[johnnyboy]

Forgot to mention that the color and black and white collections are in the public domain, since the photographers were working for the U.S. government.

John 

[charlotteCH]

Les, Do ask the Mods about making this part of the USA resources- it's such a great site.

charlotte

[johnnyboy]

Hi Charlotte: It has been moved to US Resources.

Regards,
John 

[charlotteCH]

Excellent John

charlotte