1940s USA in Colour

[cookie]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3486435/Stunning-color-photos-Great-Depression.html

 

[2jakes]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3486435/Stunning-color-photos-Great-Depression.html

Great images.
I was able to locate the following link:
Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Color ...

Thanks for sharing !

 

[Fading Fast]

Great pictures, thanks for posting. Reminds me a bit when a lot of WWII color films started coming out a decade or more ago: it altered the image template you carry around in your head of a period.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Here's a collection of 1941-1942 color shots of New York City. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...es-W-Cushman-reveal-1940s-life-Big-Apple.html

 

[Wells]

Gorgeous photos, lads! The colour really brings these photos to life.

 

[willyto]

Great photos.

I couldn't resist looking for leather jackets in the crowd:

The man on the left.

 

[filfoster]

Re Benzadmiral's posted link:
Even the indigent men are better dressed than today; the middle guy in the 7th photo down is wearing a tie!

 

[Fading Fast]

Re Benzadmiral's posted link:
Even the indigent men are better dressed than today; the middle guy in the 7th photo down is wearing a tie!

Back then, clothes were more expensive relative to the value of the dollar and dressing well was a social meme of self respect and dignity. Yes, that is an over simplification and did not apply to every subculture and region in the country, but it did apply to many. Hence, people at all social and economic levels in the '40s (and most decades up to the late '60s) tried to dress "respectfully" and with "dignity" relative to a traditional definition of dress.

IMHO, a combination of the late '60s cultural change, where dressing counter cultural became cool - a way of sticking it to "the man" - and the fact that clothes were much less expensive relative to the dollar (a cart full of clothes from Old Navy for $50 [or it's inflation adjusted amount] where becoming available) meant that dressing well in the traditional sense was neither an aspirational cultural meme nor a sign of prosperity nor self respect.

Hence, few people - other than those who seem to just like to do it - try to dress well in any traditional sense anymore. Just my humble opinion of what has changed and why. I'm sure it's more complicated and nuanced than that - and sociologist, I guessing, write doctoral theses on the subject - but at a high-level, that's what I see.

 

[VintageEveryday]

this gives me life