HT: Mike Carlson
Update: One interesting observation about the photos, sent by email: "Not one fat person."
Saturday, November 19, 2011
America in Color from 1939-1943
HT: Mike Carlson
Update: One interesting observation about the photos, sent by email: "Not one fat person."
Maybe I don't see what others see but the "effects of the depression"?. I see a business that is advertising its goods. I see a family eating together what looks like a good meal.
ReplyDeleteFascinating photographs. I loved all of them.
ReplyDeleteAmazing. What's more amazing is that those images seem to show a better standard of living, commerce and industry back then than most places in the world have today.
ReplyDeleteI'm amazed by the number of cars you can see in a small town in Montana. You couldn't see that in continental Europe at that time.
If I recall correctly, US GDP was growing pretty fast from '39-'43. I don't think the country was in recession, let alone a depression during those years. I'd be more interested in photos from '30-'33.
ReplyDeleteWhat in the heck were people doing in Pie Town New Mexico in 1940? Even today the place looks like a relic.
ReplyDeleteNice preview of what the country may look like again in 10 - 15 years.
ReplyDeleteThese photos are brilliant.
ReplyDeleteTo piggy-back on what AIG said...
The standard of living in the great "super power", the USSR, was not even close to the standard of living in Depression Era America by the time I left in the 1970's. For many Russians today and for many other people around the world, their standard of living is still not there yet!
No fat people, and the women look terrible.
ReplyDeleteBetter diets and health care are great.
Forgotten today is that a large fraction of US men were 4F in WWII due to malnutrition and its effects.
Benji states:
ReplyDelete"Forgotten today is that a large fraction of US men were 4F in WWII due to malnutrition and its effects."
Documentation please.
The pictures were great. Interesting how handwritten news stories were posted in the window of the newspaper.
"and the women look terrible. "
ReplyDeleteMake-up, hair-care products and camera lighting. Thats all
"Forgotten today is that a large fraction of US men were 4F in WWII due to malnutrition and its effects."
In 1940 the average height of the US population was actually just about identical to what it is today.
I was born in 1953 and my entire impression of that time is in black and white. To see these color photos is incredible. It makes the people seem real to me in a way I can scarcely describe. They are beautiful photographs.
ReplyDeleteNow, I'm no Keynesian and would rail against such a government project today, but it is interesting that FDR, old socialist that he was, still believed people should work for their government hand-outs. And part of the result are these pictures.
I wonder how we will look to people in 2081.
ReplyDeleteI, too, was impressed with the wealth and prosperity. Also, I noted the prices of commodities as benchmarks for the dollar:
Most interesting, of course, was the existence of the color process in those years.
My grandfather was a small business man in Connecticut and managed two keep houses, multiple properties, drive new cars, send his kids to private school, and save a considerable amount of money during the depression.
ReplyDeleteWe take photos of exceptions not rules.
"Not one fat person . . . " If you want to understand why, I'd suggest a book called "Wheat Belly."
ReplyDeleteBuddy--
ReplyDeleteDuring World War II the 40 percent 4F rate of young men drafted into the army owing to problems associated with malnutrition was a stark testimony to the ravages of the Great Depression, but it was also an alarm that set in motion decades of nutrition programs (beginning in 1946 with school lunch) that arose out of national security concerns but contributed to the eventual appreciation of basic nutrition as a fundamental human right.
http://www.uscatholic.org/blog/2009/11/generation-4f
Benji, you are attributing malnutrion to any physical impairment that might contribute to 4-F.
ReplyDeleteFrom the Nebraska Studies Org. 1925-1949; The 4-F Classification.
" The 4-F classification was given primarily for muscular and bone malformations, hearing or circulatory ailments, mental deficiency or disease, hernias, and syphilis."
So, hearing, mental deficiencies, hernias and syphilis are usually not a result of malnutrtion, but maybe bad teeth sugar or bones lack of vitamin D.
I agree with your source that basic nutrition (not starving) is a fundamental human right but it overreached in ref to 4-F.
Bill: "If I recall correctly, US GDP was growing pretty fast from '39-'43. I don't think the country was in recession, let alone a depression during those years. I'd be more interested in photos from '30-'33."
ReplyDeleteYes, GDP was growing, due to massive government war spending. Unemployment was almost nonexistent. Meanwhile, there was rationing and shortages of many consumer goods.
GDP growth doesn't necessarily mean good times.
Bunny: "...but contributed to the eventual appreciation of basic nutrition as a fundamental human right."
ReplyDeleteRights are negative. Basic human rights are those things you have when you are alone on an island. Is basic nutrition one of those things?
Buddy-
ReplyDeleteI was quoting from a study. The study stays 40 percent of men were 4F due to malnutrition, not me. This figure is not controversial.
Like I say, if you know USA 10 guys in the 50s, ask them if they are taller than their fathers. My bet is seven will say they are taller.
Benji, you were not quoting from the study. The study was about obesity of today's youth. You can see the study here from the Army Times. The part about WWII 4-F was not mentioned in the study and is opinionated conjecture.
ReplyDeleteIs not height variance in generations the basis of multiple regression statistical analysis? I am a little shorter than my dad and his grandson is taller than I.
Is not height variance in generations the basis of multiple regression statistical analysis? I am a little shorter than my dad and his grandson is taller than I.
ReplyDelete====================
Lotsa issues at play here. In general people are taller today. I own a 200+ year old farm cottage that has (had) barely over five feet of head room. I had to lower the floor to make it liveable today.
People in general are taller, but that does not change the fact that family members of one generation or another are taller or shorter.
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ReplyDeleteNot toO hard to spot what would be various code or regulatory violations today - or how and why the codes came to be.
ReplyDelete