The War in Color
Rob Long ·
May 18, 2011 at 11:05am
I'm not sure if these have been posted here -- I seem to recall there were some similar photographs posted months and months ago -- but they're worth a second look.
Wartime America, in color. Unearthed from the Library of Congress, perhaps the only thing "of Congress" that isn't a waste of time and money.
Here's what we looked like in the 1940s, when we faced a titanic struggle and "won the future."
Let's hope in 70 years people are looking back at our TwitPics and InstaGrams and Facebook photos and thinking the same thing.
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Aug '10
Re: The War in Color
They won't. All they will see is a self-absorbed, spend-thrift and indulgent culture in the twilight of its era.
Sep '10
Re: The War in Color
I had much the same reaction while reading _Unbroken_ the great story of Louis Zamperini. We are unimaginably richer today than we were less than a lifetime ago but there is something about the color that lets you know it was not all grapes of wrath. Those kids eating barbecue were having fun.
Feb '11
Re: The War in Color
Yes, history really did happen in color!
Another great set of photographs: Czarist Russia, in color
Apr '11
Re: The War in Color
Wow. Loved these photos. I noticed that the children eating in the grass near a car all had neat hair cuts, clean clothes, but no shoes. Even though it appears many of these folks were poor, they all looked, I don't know the right adjective, presentable? As if they had internal lives not on display.
It's very cool to see these in color. Those folks seem just a little bit less abstract to me now.
Re: The War in Color
Lady Bertrum: Wow. Loved these photos. I noticed that the children eating in the grass near a car all had neat hair cuts, clean clothes, but no shoes. Even though it appears many of these folks were poor, they all looked, I don't know the right adjective, presentable? As if they had internal lives not on display.
It's very cool to see these in color. Those folks seem just a little bit less abstract to me now. · May 18 at 11:29am
Yes! I knew there was something about them I found...compelling. And that's it, Lady Bertrum, thank you. They all looked presentable. Middle class. Proud, in a way. Of course they were poor -- dirt poor, by the shoeless kids -- but there was something upright about them. Society had not yet decided that poverty and squalor and social dysfunction were okay, and that middle class values were worthless.
Re: The War in Color
david foster: Yes, history really did happen in color!
Another great set of photographs: Czarist Russia, in color · May 18 at 11:27am
Love these.
And now my morning is totally shot.
Feb '11
Re: The War in Color
I don't know, I think the b&w photos of the era looked better. Some of the WPA b&w photos are here. The colors just don't look right.
Jun '10
Re: The War in Color
Rob Long
And now my morning is totally shot. · May 18 at 11:48am
This happens to me all the time, thanks to Ricochet.
Feb '11
Re: The War in Color
The title of this post reminded me of a great music video by Carbon Leaf: the war was in color.
Jul '10
Re: The War in Color
There is something about seeing this era in color that makes it more real to me. It gives it a sense of immediacy like these are people I can relate to or recognize that seeing a black and white photo of would not. Wonderful find!
Jun '10
Re: The War in Color
I realize pictures like these are scanned in for us to enjoy over the internet (and thereby are 'digital'), but there is a quality to these pictures that I seriously doubt your standard digital camera could authentically reproduce.
Are we entranced by the subjects, the quality photography, or both?
Mar '11
Re: The War in Color
If we don't survive the civilizational battle, the technology will die and we won't have any images at all.
Dec '10
Re: The War in Color
Lileks had a Bleat post on those photos, awhile back.
That was my parent's generation. I remember talking about it, with my dad, and the subject of presentability. Many people had long, unkempt, hair during that time and it was a sign of resignedness and sloth.
Depression era parents did not so much object to 1960s hair as a matter of style, but as a matter of opportunity. They resented young people that could afford to have haircuts that would allow that opportunity to be wasted.
I beleieve we had this conversation as my father gave me the haircut that appeared in a school yearbook; Prince Valiant as executed by an astigmatic.
Jul '10
Re: The War in Color
I wish someone would research the real people in these photos and what happened to them later. How did their futures compare to those of so called 'poverty' of today? My bet is that they had a better chance for success because they were allowed to keep the values of their parents unlike today when the only politically correct value is environmentalism.