From 1939 to 1943, photographers working for the Farm Security Administration and the Office of War Information shot color slides on Kodachrome, a film introduced only in 1935. The Library of Congress holds the slides, and the pictures are in the public domain. These ten date from 1940 to 1943, and they are more likely to show a plumbing store or a cotton field than a famous face.
The second-hand plumbing store, Brockton, Massachusetts
Jack Delano photographed this second-hand plumbing store in Brockton, Massachusetts, in December 1940. The signs advertise plumbing, heating and furniture, and the front yard of used stoves and fixtures stacked in the snow suggests the stock is real. With that deep blue sky it looks painted, but it is a color slide.
Going to town on Saturday afternoon
In May 1941 Jack Delano photographed this wagon from behind as it headed to town in Greene County, Georgia. Saturday was the usual day for a trip to town, and nobody looks to be in a hurry. The orange and magenta tops are the brightest things on the road for miles.
Roundhouse wipers at lunch, Clinton, Iowa
In April 1943 Jack Delano photographed women employed as wipers at the Chicago & North Western roundhouse in Clinton, Iowa. Wipers cleaned locomotives, and during the war the job went to women. They are having lunch at a long table in their rest room, with a thermos, a tin and head scarves in every color.
A guide at Little Norway, Wisconsin
Arthur Rothstein photographed this guide at Little Norway, a Norwegian-style attraction in Blue Mounds, Wisconsin, in August 1942. Its stave church had been built for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. A pompom cap and an embroidered vest are a good costume for the job.
Bannack and Montana Streets, Dillon, Montana
Russell Lee photographed the southeast corner of Bannack and Montana Streets in Dillon, Montana, in August 1942. A corner building with a turret and striped awnings is the grandest thing on the block. The street in front of it is wide, pale and nearly empty.
A garage mechanic near Newark, New Jersey
Marjory Collins photographed this garage mechanic near Newark, New Jersey, in December 1943. The caption says his badge marks him as a member of the Office of Defense Transportation, a wartime agency. He grins as if he was told to hold still and decided to enjoy it.
Children on a porch, Bayou Bourbeau, Louisiana
Marion Post Wolcott photographed these children in August 1940 at Bayou Bourbeau, a Farm Security Administration cooperative near Natchitoches, Louisiana. A girl in a straw hat holds a smaller child on her lap, and the little one studies the camera with a finger at her mouth.
A freight house and two towers, Chicago
In April 1943 Jack Delano photographed trucks unloading at the Illinois Central’s inbound freight house on South Water Street in Chicago. Behind the red freight cars, the Wrigley Building and Tribune Tower rise out of the haze, as clean as postcards above all that track.
A typhoid shot at a rural school, Texas
John Vachon photographed Dr. Schreiber of San Augustine giving a typhoid inoculation at a rural school in San Augustine County, Texas, in April 1943. The patient has her sleeve up and her eyes screwed shut, and the doctor has the calm, practiced air of someone who has done this before.
Chopping cotton near White Plains, Georgia
Jack Delano photographed these sharecroppers chopping cotton on rented land near White Plains, Greene County, Georgia, in June 1941. Chopping meant thinning the young plants and clearing weeds with a hoe, row after row. Every hoe is tilted at nearly the same angle, as if the whole field were keeping time.
