Babe

April showers are unusual in San Jose. They spritz up even Babe's muffler shop. That's Babe to the right, I believe.

Wing

Stonecrest, FL

Your FSA/OWI Photo of the Day

Driving While Black (and young and male) in 1941 Pacolet, South Carolina (population 352 in 1940), must have been... well, you'd like to ask these fellows...

Untitled photo, possibly related to: Negro youngsters and their Model "T" near Pacolet, South Carolina, Jack Delano, 1941.

Your FSA/OWI Photo of the Day

That wasn't so bad, was it now?  Dr. Schreiber of San Augustine giving a typhoid inoculation at a rural school, San Augustine County, Texas. John Vachon, 1943.

Your FSA/OWI Photo of the Day

 New England hurricane. Salvaging onions near Hadley, Massachusetts. Sheldon Dick, 1938.

Your FSA/OWI Photo of the Day

Circus wagons made by Mr. Whitmarsh. Alger [i.e. Archer], Montana. Russell Lee, 1937

Your FSA/OWI Photo of the Day

Jack Whinery, homesteader, and his family, Pie Town, New Mexico

Russell Lee, 1940

Your FSA/OWI Photo of the Day

Children picking potatoes on a large farm near Caribou, Maine. Schools do not open until the potatoes are harvested. Jack Delano, 1940.

Your FSA/OWI Photo of the Day

Washington, D.C. Hippopotamus in the zoo begging for peanuts. John Ferrell, 1942.

Your FSA/OWI Photo of the Day

Aboard a trap fishing boat, the fish freezer and the fish buyer. Fish freezers deliver most of their whiting to the Middle West and West. Squid is used for bait, sold at a dollar a barrel. Trap fishermen who manages to earn between eight hundred and one thousand dollars a year considers himself royally successful. Provincetown, Massachusetts
Edwin Rosskam, 1937.

Baylands geometry

Your Second FSA/OWI Photo of the Day

Bohemian miners (coal loaders) unemployed since mechanization of mines. Jere, West Virginia. They live together in one house with a woman housekeeper. All on relief. Spend most of their time fighting about politics. Call their dog "Hitler" because he's so mean and nasty. To the left is an outdoor oven for baking bread. Abandoned mining town.
Marion Post Wolcott, 1938

Your FSA/OWI Photo of the Day

Unemployed miner. Herrin, Illinois
Arthur Rothstein, 1939.

Robert Frank, RIP

Gosh, so many obit blog posts lately. Anyway, I own a reprint edition of Frank's The Americans, and I have had the privilege of seeing the actual prints, in book order, in a museum setting. I love his approach to photography, and I love his take on America: critical, leftist, but open-minded and big-hearted, and with a real sense of humor: Why not obscure the faces of your subjects with jingoistic iconography? But when he wanted to capture faces, he didn't mess around...

Milpitas!

Probably smelled a little better back in 1939.
Ranch camp for pea pickers. Near Milpitas, Santa Clara County, California. Dorothea Lange, 1939.

Your FSA/OWI Photo of the Day

Wanda the Welder?
California shipyard workers. This woman worker pushes back her helmet during a moment's pause from her welding job at the Richmond shipyard in California. Ann Rosener, 1943.

My Gerhard Richter phase

Also known as my accidental photo of the sidewalk phase...

Your FSA/OWI Photo of the Day

Miscellaneous lot of photographs by Barbara Wright. New Mexico. Clayton, New Mexico. American Legion hall. Barbara Wright, c. 1941.

In New Mexico, it appears that Ms. Wright couldn't resist riffing on Ansel Adams's Taos Pueblo pictures.

Your FSA/OWI Photo of the Day

Redwood trees and stumps on redwood highway. An active mill town of the Pacific Lumber Company is located at Scotia. California, Humboldt County. Dorothea Lange, 1939.