Home On Leave

This one's dated "Mar 44."  D-Day was a few months away, and victory a little more than a year.  If this young man was a new recruit, he was probably on leave before being sent to a replacement camp, perhaps Camp Croft, mentioned in yesterday's post.

To me, though, it's his grandfather (Or perhaps great-grandfather.) that draws my eye.  I'm trying to figure out just how old he could have been when this picture was taken.  If he was eighty, he was born in the last year of the Civil War, had lived to see the Spanish-American War, World War 1, as well as all the Indian wars of the great plains.  And judging by the background, more than likely, he  witnessed some of those battles.  And then there was the invention of the light bulb, movies, radio, and the airplane.  The dust bowl and the great depression.  And if he lived a few years after this photo was taken, atomic weaponry, and jet aircraft.  May you live in interesting times.

The Swimming Dock

Dated July 1931, during the great depression. Even in hard times people can enjoy the simple things, like a nice swim.

Hobo of the Great Depression

This image is a perfect example of my love/hate relationship to old photo dealers. I was told that this photograph was taken from an album, and labeled "bum, Washington, D.C. 1934." Maybe that's true, or maybe it was just something the dealer told me to make a $2.00 sale. In any case, in an album, this image would have had historical context. It would be possible to see what the photographer was drawn to. It could have shown a much broader picture of the United States during the great depression. As a stand alone image, removed from the album, it's an interesting image, and nothing else.

Lubbock, Texas

This is one of the treasures of my collection. This image is a an 8x10 contact print, mounted in a cardboard frame labelled, "Daniel, Lubbock." Daniel is the name of the photographer, not the subject. What a great image from the dust bowl era, made by a professional photographer. I'm taken by the young woman who looks away from the camera. An interesting composition.