In living color (this is worth looking at....)

Thanks for posting the pics. The only license plate I could read was 1942. I'll bet there were some good lies told in Frenchie's Bar!!

 

Most of the pics that had dates listed were from the late 30's to the mid 40's. I don't know why color pics took so long to catch on in the US, you can find color pics taken by French photographers during WWI. There was a Russian guy named Prokudin-Gorskii taking color photographs even earlier than that...

 

There's an old familiar hillside overlooking Emhouse,Texas
Where i left some childhood memories layin' round
I can almost hear the singing, i can still remember praying
At them old campground meetings eatin' chicken on the ground

Chorus:
With them hallelujahs ringin',everybody shoutin',singin'
Give me that old time religion,Jesus loves me,this i know
When life was finger-lickin' good and God lived in our neighborhood
At them old campground meetin's eatin' chicken on the ground

I can still remember feelin' all that happiness inside me
When i praised the Lord and laid my burdens down
But that chicken must have tasted better than the word of God
'Cause it went slippin' through my fingers and rollin' on the ground

Chorus.

I reckon everyone of us can call back or remember
When the taste and smell of youth was all around
And i reckon in our own way everyone of us is payin' now
For eatin' chicken and not listenin' to old Parson Brown

— Billy Joe Shaver
"Chicken On The Ground"

(I'm not a religious sort, but that BJS song jumped right on my head when I looked at that photo. Cool photo. Cool song)

 

just fantastic pics...

 

Cool pictures, nice one of the girl working on the plane/tank engine.

 

You know, if you travel the heartland, I mean get off the super duper freeway and cruise the backroads for hundreds of miles, you find places that look just like these pictures. Yeah, the cars are different and the clothes but for the most part, things haven't changed that much. If the pics were taken in 1942 there could have been several reasons why the people didn't have big smiles. Not to say the some didn't but the times were hard, the war was raging on both front and I'd say that most of the people there knew a friend or family member that had been killed or that was fighting, in one way or another, to support the US. A hero was a hero, honored and respected. There were no hyphenated Americans back then. Everyone was an American and realized that it had to be that way or risk losing it all to the invaders.

Another thing you don't see in this picture is air conditioning, anywhere. Most people spent their summer evenings outside until the sun went down. With all the things that were wrong with the world back then, things at home were alot more simple than we could ever imagine. When I moved to a small Kansas town in the mid sixties, it was like stepping back in time. Anyone here remember "party lines". For you younger guys, a party line was a common phone line used by several different households. I someone called, I think that all the phones in each house would ring. The caller had to hope that the right person picked it up. And, privacy was something that other people had. Lord knows what would happen if you actually wrote a letter to someone. Well, that's enough, I could go on all night. Thanks for the walk down memory land.

 

Thanks for turning me on to this site, it's a great slice of America.

Here's a few I like:

 

You know what's funny,is that many of the guys on here are too young to remember when all you had was a 13" B&W TV. Some on here even remember nothing but radio,for entertainment! Love those old photos. Reminds me of when I was a kid,with all the cool 50's car running around.

 

thank you for this post, really great pics, kinda like a little slice of life

 

thanks for the bitchen wallpaper/screensaver

 

In the same vein, but in living color and movement

**Historic views of every-day life in Detroit 1954 street scenes as viewed through the lens of 8mm film. **

3 parts, each about a minute long, enjoy

Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQxrhiraoUg
Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRj4_qkqgXo
Part 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVhTdKnDUW0

 

Cool movies. One thing I noticed pretty quick about those old pictures, and also in the movie's you posted, are the number of Coca-cola signs....

 

The advertisements, the signage, the architecture, the cars... I really like em. Neat look into everyday life.

 

A true slice of way back, and showing that times were really tough then.

 

It seems that a lot of photos from this era and earlier there were not a lot of happy people around; camera going to steal my soul symdone? Had to laugh at pic number four...were those three guys in witness protection?

The obesity epidemic comment reminded me of something I used to do with my students. Our school, all boys, had hung a lot of photos on the walls from the thirties up to the sixties. I would send them down to check out the pics and when they returned asked them what they noticed. Occasionally a student would meantion how skinny everyone was otherwise I'd bring it up. They usually guessed that back then everyone was poor. They were a little shocked that those pics were before the preponderance of a lot of junk food a fast food on every corner...

 

I wonder if it all had to do with the TV remote control???

 

35 yrs ago my son asked me a question regarding my youth.
It started out as …
“When the world was black and white,”
I’ll never forget that.
Thanks for the pictures.

 

The pic in the original post with everyone sitting down to eat and being served is mesmerizing. I stared at it for a good 20 minutes.

 

More than interesting .....thanks for posting.

 

I don’t know why you studied the picture for that long and didn’t figure out what was really going on.
The people weren’t sitting down and being served, they were helping themselves at the table with all the food, a good old fashioned pot luck.
Everyone made some food and they all got together.

Times weren’t as tough as everyone wants to believe. They were at times sure but life was also simpler.

I remember party line phones, phone booths and growing up with black and white tv.
My dad got one of the first color TVs on our street and the neighbors loved to come over to see it.

Growing up without video games and all the rest of the stuff that kids take for granted now was great, we had fun and adventures running around outside from early morning to evening on our bikes.
Games, sports all sorts of things sometimes even mischievous fun.
Building soap box cars from whatever junk we could find, stuff like that.

I still believe life was simpler back then.

 

I remember those Days quite well there were Good Days & Bad but we
Came together For the USA when Pearl Harbor was Attacked.!
and I was a Biker in those day's up till the early 50's when I bought my 50 Merc
Bryan....Thanks for the Pictures.!

Just my 3.5 cents

Live Learn & Die a Fool

 

And TV dinners!

 

All we had was black and white TV. Bob Scott got the first one and I would go with my Grand Dad to watch Gun Smoke. Grand Ma would not allow violence in the house but wanted a color TV to see the Rose Parade. Party lines were everywhere and you each had a specific ring. Two longs and a short was our house with three other houses on the same line. Riding your hand me down bicycle because you didn't have the money for a new one. Riding it miles to find 5 Coke bottles for the $.02 deposit. Five bottles got you a free Coke at the store if you drank it there. No one worried about being kid napped and we ran free with no worries all Summer. Mowed grass for $1.00 a yard with a reel push mower and raked it then clipped with hand clippers. Mowed the steep hills with a sickle or a scythe, no weed eaters. Gas when we got a power mower was $.26 a Gallon at the American Gas station where you also aired your bicycle tires up for free.

 

Yeah, them to!!!....

 

Yep! Where have those grand old days gone?????...

 

I also remember the days of roaming around collecting bottles which we could return to the corner store for the refund, typically a nice cold bottle of RC Cola from the cooler.
Or maybe a popsicle.
Often times we could find enough bottles to get a small paper bag full of penny candy.
Sharing it with the girls down the street was fun too.
Good times that to be sure were mixed in with some hard times but definitely the good outweighs the bad and being a free range kid was great in those days.

 

It wasn't all good, they still had those time out dolls at their cruise ins!

 

In early photography people weren't encouraged to smile because the exposure too so long. Also these sort of shots are records of events, not family photos to put on the wall. I prefer candid shots because it captures how people really are at the time. Miserable, no. Thoughtful, probably. Natural, definitely.

 

I was looking at the faces and expressions. That’s what captivated my interest.
Oh, yes I grew up with a party line, BW tv, etc.

But I guess the difference noted between serving or being served wasn’t a thought when I was looking at the photo.

Look at the faces, look at the expressions they have.
Fascinating it was to me.

 

I can remember my Dad taking the battery out of his 48 Plymouth to hook up to the battery powered radio so he could listen to the Grand Ol Opry on Saturday night. No electricty just kerosene lamps.