The Library of Congress has released loads of photos on Flickr. My favorite is this set of color photos from the 1930s and 1940s. I’ve seen very little if any color photography from that era. It all looks like it was shot 20 years later than it was.
It’s curious to me how film quality affects our perception of time periods. I always pictured the pre-1960 world as black and white, then a sort of off-kilter Technicolor world before film started to look more “normal” in the 1980s. Oddly enough, I always pictured the pre-photographic world as the random illustrations and paintings that appeared in textbooks.
It’s also interesting seeing all the horses and wagons. For whatever reason I always imagined the automobile being ubiquitous after 1920 or so.
History lesson. How would you like to be Leo Szilard? The man worked on the Manhattan Project, building the first atomic bomb for the U.S. military. Then, when he realized its potential, he fought against any military use of the bomb. But to no avail. The bombs were dropped and Hiroshima and Nagasaki were leveled. Days later the Japanese unconditionally surrendered. What is the state of humanity when it becomes necessary to level a city to end a war? Many argue that the use of nuclear weapons was necessary. My grandfather fought as a marine in Iowa Jima, and would have undoubtedly been a part of any invasion force, had it been necessary to invade Japan. Such an invasion would not come without great casualties. Therefore many people argue that the atomic bombs saved American lives.
The Library of Congress has released loads of photos on Flickr. My favorite is this set of color photos from the 1930s and 1940s. I’ve seen very little if any color photography from that era. It all looks like it was shot 20 years later than it was.