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I’m fascinated by vintage photos, occasionally buying a few and wondering at the stories behind them. Growing up in southwest Florida I frequented a variety of thrift shops, each of which contained piles of old family photos and Super-8 movies, often with tantalizing words written on the reels: BAHAMAS, ALASKA, WATERFALL, and so on.
Enter Square America, “a gallery of vintage snapshots & vernacular photography.” The site is an online museum of photographs from the first three-quarters of the twentieth century, collected from flea markets and eBay. I bet the curator would enjoy the junk shop down the street from me with several filing cabinets crammed full of old photos, labeled: Instant Friends & Family; Instant Vacation; Instant Childhood.
Square American has a bunch of exhibits up, including The Menagerie, Catch of the Day, and the eponymous Square America. Here are some photos from that last one, which features square-negative photos:
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Link via Your Daily Awesome.
It’s always sad to me that people clean out their deceased relative’s house and pitch all this stuff without much regard for other relatives (or future generations) who would find the images priceless.
posted by Sid Morrison on 8-27-2007 at 10:18 am
I could use that “instant childhood”. There are hardly any old pictures of my family since my house burned down when I was 17. Learn from this: always get extra prints, negatives, or discs and share.
posted by Miss Cellania on 8-27-2007 at 11:29 am
my dad got an old photo of his mom pushing a baby carriage from his cousin after his mom died. the cousin thought it was him in the carriage, but when he looked at the back it was dated three years before he was born. that is how he found out he hadn’t been an only child at all. he had a sister who died as a baby before he was born. his mom was so devastated she would never talk about it to anyone, and the next generation of the family didn’t even know.
so i am a big fan of old photos too. you never know what you might learn!
posted by lindsay m on 8-27-2007 at 12:50 pm
I went to a yard sale once and found an old photo album from the 60’s. Upon inspection of the photos, I found 2 pictures of a 5 year old looking at a Playboy magazine. Amazing what you can find at a yard sale, isn’t it?
posted by Brook on 8-27-2007 at 1:28 pm
My grandmother had Alzheimers. In her dementia she was throwing things out. There were pictures, such as my grandfather at age 6 in 1911, that I wanted. I don’t know if my uncle(an obnoxious jerk) has them or if they were thrown out.
posted by Tdave on 8-28-2007 at 12:39 am
I find piles of old photos and old photo albums very sad. All those people are most likely unknown to the current generations. I guess we will be unknown two or three generations from now.
posted by Catherine on 8-28-2007 at 11:28 am
It’s amazing how much you can learn about a person by the things they save. My grandfather has every note my grandmother ever wrote to him while he was traveling. She’d scribble something down on scratch paper and tuck it into his luggage before he traveled. He can also remember just about every date they ever went on. But he can’t remember what he did with his Purple Heart.
posted by Maggie on 8-28-2007 at 1:18 pm
I enjoy Jones Soda for the pictures more than for the drink itself - you always wonder the stories behind the photo
posted by Mandie on 8-28-2007 at 7:01 pm
This is my new favorite website. These photos are great, and I love the ones that have things written on them.
And, sometimes, these photos make it to garage sales or eBay because the people die without relatives, so they get sold in estate sales or left in the attic, and the next owner finds them.
posted by Michelle on 8-28-2007 at 7:31 pm