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Sometimes looking at old photographs makes me think of this exchange between comic-strip hero Calvin and his dad:
Calvin: Dad, how come old photographs are always black and white? Didn’t they have color film back then?
Dad: Sure they did. In fact, those old photographs are in color. It’s just the world was black and white then.
Calvin: Really?
Dad: Yep. The world didn’t turn color until sometime in the 1930s, and it was pretty grainy color for a while, too.
Calvin: But then why are old PAINTINGS in color?! If the world was black and white, wouldn’t artists have painted it that way?
Dad: Not necessarily. A lot of great artists were insane.
As absurd as it sounds, there is a kind of psychological truth to it — having seen mostly black-and-white pictures of the world pre-1960 or so (I’m not counting Technicolor movies), I begin to imagine the past unfolding in monochrome. Every once in a while, though, a really old color photo made with some obscure, early color process will slip through and blow my mind.
But this really takes the cake: the Library of Congress has just created a Flickr page, on which they’ve posted nearly 2,000 color slides — many of them hauntingly beautiful. The photographers worked for the Farm Security Administration and the Office of War Information, for whom many famous black-and-white pictures were taken around the same time (the iconic “Migrant Mother,” for instance).
But rather than sending you off to pick through thousands of these photos on Flickr — something of a laborious process — we’ve compiled our favorites here. These are portraits almost as compelling as “Migrant Mother,” but even more vivid — almost hyper-real — for their eye-popping color. (In fact, they hardly seem like historical photos at all.) For whatever reason, they’ve remained obscure until now, and we thought they deserved a little extra attention.
“This husky member of a construction crew building a new 33,000-volt electric power line into Fort Knox is performing an important war service, Ft. Knox, Ky. Thousands of soldiers are in training there, and the new line from a hydroelectric plant at Louisville is needed to supplement the existing power supply.” 1940
A boilermaker at a Chicago train yard, 1942
Boy near Cincinnati, Ohio, 1942
“Woman aircraft worker, Vega Aircraft Corporation, Burbank, Calif. Shown checking electrical assemblies.” 1942
“Mrs. Irene Bracker, mother of two children, employed at the roundhouse as a wiper, Clinton, Iowa.” 1943
Rural school children, San Augustine County, Texas, 1943.
Farm worker, Puerto Rico, 1941.
“A carpenter at the TVA’s new Douglas dam on the French Broad River, Tenn. This dam will be 161 feet high and 1,682 feet ong, with a 31,600-acre reservoir area extending 43 miles upstream. With a useful storage capacity of approximately 1,330,000 acre-feet, this reservoir will make possible the addition of nearly 100,000 kw. of continuous power to the TVA system in dry years and almost 170,000 kw. in the average year.” 1942
“Making harnesses, Mary Saverick stitching, Pioneer Parachute Company Mills, Manchester, Conn.” 1942
“Couples at square dance, McIntosh County, Oklahoma,” 1939.
“Tank driver, Ft. Knox, Ky.” 1942?
“Shepherd with his horse and dog on Gravelly Range, Madison County, Montana,” August, 1942.
Mechanic, 1943.
“Worker at carbon black plant, Sunray, Texas,” 1940.
It’s funny, but color photos make the past seem more real, somehow.
Great post!
posted by Melodye on 1-17-2008 at 11:29 am
Loads of photos like these can be seen at:
www.shorpy.com
Old photos from the civil war through about 1950. –RN
posted by RSN on 1-17-2008 at 11:33 am
Last picture = wow!
posted by Sarah on 1-17-2008 at 11:35 am
Wow.. those are amazing. I really does make the past seem more real. I wish I had photos of my family members from back then in color.
posted by Karen on 1-17-2008 at 11:51 am
Wow! Those photos are fantastic! They’re almost like an anachronism they’re so clear and vivid. *history geek moment* very, very, very cool.
posted by Ashley on 1-17-2008 at 11:55 am
*swoon*
History. Photography.
Historical Photography.
Historical Photography in COLOR?
*swoon*
Great post!
posted by mrs.djs on 1-17-2008 at 12:08 pm
very very awesome post!
posted by ellentyler on 1-17-2008 at 12:13 pm
I guess this is repetitive at this point, but this is awesome! I’m a student of 19th century history and consequently spend a lot of time with black-and-white photos. It would be so amazing to see them in this kind of color!
posted by kate on 1-17-2008 at 12:32 pm
re: “make the past seem more real”
Am I the only one that feels like it makes the past seem fake? Like it was just a TV show.
Not that I don’t appreciate these and the work that went into them. There’s just something so authentic about a black and white photo–for me anyway.
posted by Nicole on 1-17-2008 at 12:48 pm
One thing these photos show me, is that current generations are a bunch of, for lack of a better word, wussies. My grandfather worked in a factory making machetes and knives for 40 years. Never once did I ever here him complain about how hard his job was or how hard he had to work to make a living. Now you kids get off my damn lawn.
posted by Sean on 1-17-2008 at 12:49 pm
Nicole –
Well, these pictures are by no means candids … maybe their lack of spontaneity is what’s making them seem less “real.” A lot of them are lit, highly posed, etc. Almost painterly!
posted by Ransom on 1-17-2008 at 12:50 pm
Funny story (and true): My mother and grandmother were looking at old pictures of my grandmother’s wedding. Naturally, the pictures were in black and white. My mom asked her mother “What color did your bridesmaids wear?” My grandmother looked at the pictures for a few seconds, then said, in all seriousness, “I don’t think we HAD color back then.”
posted by Craig on 1-17-2008 at 1:05 pm
Another vote of awesome! Those colors seem so rich…
posted by kitsana_d on 1-17-2008 at 1:12 pm
I like these images. I do find it curious that the Irene Bracker one is incredibly pale–do they know if it’s faded, or if that’s the way it was printed or shot, or what?
Most of the photos look amazing, though. The tank driver and boilermaker both look like they could be from period films made today, and the carbon black plant worker looks like he could be in either “Apocalypto” or “There Will Be Blood.” It’s not often that people in historical photos could get such jobs in movies.
posted by Sillstaw on 1-17-2008 at 1:33 pm
Funny but at first I thought the boilermaker photo was a studio still of Peter Fonda in Grapes of Wrath!
These are amazing photos, especially the children. Somehow black and whites of kids from that era always made them look a little less real. These photos bring the children alive. They look like they could be from almost any time.
Thanks for the post!
posted by JaneM on 1-17-2008 at 1:44 pm
Sillstaw –
Re the Irene Bracker photo, I think she looks a little washed out for two reasons:
1) The photographer’s reflecting bright sunlight right at her, and
2) She’s wearing lots of makeup! That’s part of what I found amazing about that particular photo … she must’ve talked the photographer into letting her put on makeup before the shot (or, perhaps, he talked her into it), and it stands in such stark contrast to her grimy shirt.
posted by Ransom on 1-17-2008 at 1:48 pm
i agree that colour photos make them seem like shots out of period movies. i also think of the past in black and white or sepia tones. some of these shots look horribly fake (the carpenter with the blue sky background) but some of them really do make the past seem more real (children, the women, the coal worker). i realize that they are probably not fakes, but to my modern-day perspective and past experiences (the way my brain has been “trained” to see things) they do look like movie stills.
very interesting post.
posted by the creature on 1-17-2008 at 2:13 pm
These photos are striking. The color seems interesting at first, but after looking for a minute or two the quality and clarity of the photos become apparent. Other photos from the time, beyond being black and white, are often small and grainy. These are high ‘pixle’ count, although pixles didnt exist at the time. Marvelous.
posted by Jeremy on 1-17-2008 at 2:28 pm
Most of them look like something Norman Rockwell painted.
posted by Jake Le Master on 1-17-2008 at 2:45 pm
I am amazed at the color and clarity–they seem almost surreal at first! The last picture is amazing . . . and it surprised me when I read the caption, as I am from near Sunray, TX–both little towns in the Texas Panhandle. Yay for the Library of Congress!
posted by nutmeag on 1-17-2008 at 3:04 pm
These are simply stunning! They seem to add a whole other dimension of emotion to them, at least for me.
posted by Krie on 1-17-2008 at 3:04 pm
I just went through a lot of those pictures… all I can say is WOW.
Check the whole thing out if you can.. the Pie Town pictures are spiffy, the story of Pie Town is a treat too.
My employer does not thank you but I do! ;)
posted by mrs.djs on 1-17-2008 at 3:22 pm
incredible quality and content
just another reason to assert that film is not dead and still worth shooting today!!!
shoot more film IMHO
posted by btezra on 1-17-2008 at 3:23 pm
If you like these photos (which are way rad), you should check out the work of the Russian photographer Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky, which you can find tons of info on Wikipedia, including some pretty good links.
posted by bo on 1-17-2008 at 3:39 pm
Wow! Loved the pick of the lady in Burbank, CA. That’s my hometown!
posted by Sandy C on 1-17-2008 at 4:02 pm
Beautiful! My fave is the little boy in Cincinnati. It could have been taken yesterday… except for the hat.
In the first photo, the worker is labeled ‘husky.’ Times have changed, eh? What year was the Big Mac invented?
posted by Andiscandis on 1-17-2008 at 4:07 pm
One reason the color pops on these phtographs is that they were almost certainly taken on Kodachrome film. Slight underexposure on Kodachrome really saturates the colors. Although film isn’t dead, Kodachrome practically is. The last time I checked there was only one place that was processing this film in the world, Dwayne’s Photo in Kansas. Even Kodak stopped processing it in 2006.
posted by JohnW on 1-17-2008 at 5:25 pm
We have been recently been going through my grandparent’s old slides from the 30’s - 60’s. They are all in color. It is so astounding to see all of the colors of that world come to life after looking at so many thousands of the black and white ones from the same time period.
The woman bent over the electrical wiring looks like my Italian grandmother. She grew up in the “always have your lipstick on” era. Before she died, last March, she made a neighbor friend promise to make sure that she had her lipstick on before the medical examiner came.
posted by Andrea on 1-17-2008 at 5:25 pm
I particularly like the Montana dog.
posted by Miss Cellania on 1-17-2008 at 9:23 pm
oh my god. i have fallen in love with these and the ones from www.shorpy.com.
im definitely buying a print of one. there are so many beautiful ones to choose from!
posted by Laura on 1-17-2008 at 11:27 pm
Absolutely beautiful. Thanks for the Shorpy link, too.
Yall should check out a show called “The Color of War” on the History Channel. The rare color footage is accompanied by the reading of letters from servicemen who were fought in the specific battle or area.
And yall are right, color definitely does make it seem that more real.
posted by Peter on 1-18-2008 at 2:06 am
It sure is odd seeing 1940 in color.
One time when we were talking about color and b&w, I joked to my mother, “Wasn’t it boring years ago when everything was black and white?” as if I thought real life was B&W.
A documentary on PBS had film footage taken during WW2 of a street with bombed buildings. The color footage was so crisp, clear, and sharp that it looked as if it was recently shot footage using restored cars and people wearing reproduction clothing.
posted by Tdave on 1-18-2008 at 2:50 am
p.s. It was a street in Germany.
posted by Tdave on 1-18-2008 at 2:55 am
These are all so gorgeous!
posted by Tanya on 1-18-2008 at 8:02 am
Wow.
This is kinda like seeing really really old color footage of baseball or football games from the 30s-50s. You get so used to seeing that world in shades of sepia that you forget it really was in color.
Thank you for a really neat post.
posted by eroe777 on 1-18-2008 at 11:32 am
Just a quick follow-up about the film used for these photos. I’ve determined at least two are definitely on Kodachrome, the boilermaker and the worker at the carbon black plant. These photographs were taken on 4″x5″ sheet film, and can be identified as Kodachrome by the notches on the top edge. This is also the reason they have higher detail than most of the other photographs, the film used was much larger than the others, which appear to be on 35mm.
Ransom commented that some of the photos look posed and are clearly being lit. That was absolutely necessary. When Kodachrome was released in 1935, it had an equivalent ISO of 8. That means in direct sunlight the shutter speed would be 1/8 of a second at f/16. Too slow to capture motion, and the camera couldn’t be hand-held either. If you compromised on the aperture, you could get 1/60 of a second or perhaps a little faster.
Also the amount of detail has been commented on. It’s been estimated that in order to capture the same amount of detail as a 35mm Kodachrome, 25 megapixels would be required. For 4″x5″ Kodachrome it would require over 370 megapixels, by my rough estimation.
If you like these pictures, you may be interested in the book “Bound for Glory: America in Color 1939-43″, currently available on Amazon at an unbelievable price for a hardcover.
posted by JohnW on 1-18-2008 at 11:54 am
Wow, I thought I was the only one who could only imagine the past in black and white! I once read a newspaper article that my grandmother saved from 1959, about my dad (13 at the time) saving my uncle (4) from drowning when he fell into a hole in a frozen lake. The article mentions my uncle’s red coat, and it’s the only thing in my mind in color!
Actually, now that I think about it, it’s really only from around the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s or so that we see this way, isn’t it? Does anyone here imagine the renaissance in black and white?
posted by Liz on 1-18-2008 at 7:47 pm
A guy toured Russia in 1910 and took photos in red, green and blue. Put together they give full colour images of the period so they’re similar to these but even earlier. You can see them here: www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/
posted by Ian on 1-19-2008 at 6:58 am
I like the black and white photo’s better as they give more feeling to the times.
posted by chad on 1-21-2008 at 11:19 am
I agree that some of them look pretty fake but some look real and those are wonderful.
posted by Caylin on 1-22-2008 at 10:21 pm
They look publicity stills for a new war/depression era movie coming out.
posted by Codius on 1-23-2008 at 6:52 am
The picture of the shepherd with his horse and dog was from my family’s ranch! My parents took over the ranch in 1949 and turned it into a cattle ranch- my dad hated sheep. I grew up there until I was 15. I know the exact spot the photo was taken- we used to picnic and get our Christmas trees up on the Gravellies! Way cool! Thanks!
posted by Anne on 1-23-2008 at 12:57 pm
My five year old was watching a black and white film with me. Like Calvin, it puzzled her. She asked, “Are those people made of cardboard?”
posted by Doug on 1-23-2008 at 8:53 pm
What is real and what is fake? These photos were taken 70 years ago in color, as color was revealed to us then; deep muted colors. We have gone from Black & White to Color, to Technicolor, to High Definition Color, which to me does not reflect true color as seen through the human eyes. Pretty soon there will be lots of depressed zombies walking around because the real colored world cannot reflect their HD color perception. Are we evolving into those alien creatures with Huge Black Eyes? Will Mental Floss be a contributor to the expansion of the head to accomodate our future brain? Stay tuned to next weeks, “Are we Aliens?” Just kidding folks… just kidding…
posted by Patricia on 1-26-2008 at 2:00 pm
Hey guys,
I think some of them look “fake” to some people because they’re heavily lit, in the same way that movies were lit back then. Bright background behind your subject? Shoot a huge light at him/her to bring the subject up to the same exposure. Which looks kinda fake/movieish to the eye.
posted by Ransom on 1-26-2008 at 2:20 pm
Great photos, but I would argue that these are post depression contrary to the headline in the editor’s picks.
I think WWII started in 1939 and the US involvement began in 1942, which is generally regarded in economics circles as the end of the depression era.
posted by Michael on 1-30-2008 at 6:02 pm
Don’t forget the autochrome process, patented in 1903.
posted by Poulet on 1-30-2008 at 7:51 pm
These pictures are beautiful! It is true that it makes the past seem more real. When I was little when watching black and white shows I thought that is how people saw one another. It was hard to comprehend that they were “In color”
I love MENTAL FLOSS–great magazine, great website : )
posted by Erin on 2-27-2008 at 9:45 am
Amazing special effects.
They look so…real!
posted by chieromancer on 3-5-2008 at 1:41 pm
darn it, there aren’t any “Depression Era” photos there. All New Deal era photos, when the government was hiring people like photographers just to distribute money. That’s how socialism works, money isn’t wasted when it employs people to stimulate the economy. And sometimes a masterpiece happens, like these pictures.
posted by Gnarlodious on 3-23-2008 at 9:26 pm
Couples square dance is black and white, right?
posted by Maurice on 4-22-2008 at 8:47 am
I looked and immediately thought
Kodachrome!
Thanks for confirming this.
——————-
Kodachrome
They give us those nice bright colors
They give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the worlds a sunny day, oh yeah
I got a nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So mama dont take my kodachrome away
———–
Paul Simon / Kodachrome
posted by Hank Roberts on 4-29-2008 at 8:25 pm