Library of Congress Photos

[Fluesheet]

Hello all,

My wife found a collection of color photos taken in the '30's and '40's on Flickr - part of a larger collection owned by the Library of Congress. The description given for this collection states:

These vivid color photos from the Great Depression and World War II capture an era generally seen only in black-and-white. Photographers working for the United States Farm Security Administration (FSA) and later the Office of War Information (OWI) created the images between 1939 and 1944.

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Several I found interesting (among hundreds of interesting ones) follow. There are a lot of day to day, non glamorous parts of railroading pictured, which makes the collection exquisite.

Painting a freigh car outside in the winter in Chicago (couldn't have been an easy job).
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Interesting maintenance of way staging area (I think)
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Very crisp shot, lots of detail. A similar shot immediately follows this. Note the extra long switch reach rod (?) to allow the switchman to work the far turnout without crossing the tracks.
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[nachoman]

Isn't it weird that things don't seem as old when they are in color?

[MasonJar]

Isn't it weird that things don't seem as old when they are in color?

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Andrew

[railohio]

The Jack Delano photos shown here are relatively famous. Some have appeared in Trains magazine over the years and, of course, they've been available on flickr for some time now.

[ocalicreek]

Nice find - thanks for sharing. I have enjoyed looking through the b&w FSA collection at the LOC site for some time now. What's neat is to pair it with a Google map search, then find out if there's a street view of the same location today.

Great way to waste time!

Galen