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Historical picture with the story behind it.
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Another Lange Photo
So you think you could be a professional photographer. After all, you take great selfies. Well, look at this picture by Dorothea Lange. It’s a mother and her two daughters on the road in California in 1939. Note the composition, which was not planned, but was instinctively seen by Lange. Read more…
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Florence Owens Thompson
One day in 1936, photographer Dorothea Lange pulled up at a pea-pickers camp in California and snapped some pictures. Seven of those pictures were of Florence Thompson and her kids. One of those pictures, entitled “Migrant Mother”, became the most famous photo of the Great Depression. Lange’s notes read: “Destitute Read more…
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Dorothea Lange
“I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet. I do not remember how I explained my presence or my camera to her, but I do remember she asked me no questions.” Dorothea Lange in “The Assignment I’ll Never Forget: Migrant Mother” Dorothea Lange Read more…
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Interesting Facts About Ellis Island
It was originally called “Gibbet Island” which was a reference to the gallows used to execute pirates, criminals, and mutinous sailors on it. After the last hanging in 1839, it took the name of its last private owner – Samuel Elllis. The first immigrants were processed on Ellis Island on Read more…
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Prices Back in the Day
I just got done reading “From Here to Eternity” by James Jones. It is set in 1941 and one of the things that stuck out for me was the incredibly low prices mentioned in the book. No wonder those soldiers drank so much, liquor was very cheap. And yet, in Read more…
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The Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
In 1968, King was shifting his movement towards a coalition of poor African-Americans and whites. He was planning another march on Washington to be called the Poor People’s Campaign. He took time off from the planning, against the advice of some of his advisers, to support a sanitation workers’ strike Read more…
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WWII Howitzer
There were three basic types of artillery used by American forces in WWII. Guns or cannons were low trajectory, high velocity weapons that were used for direct fire. Tanks were armed with them. Mortars were used to lob small shells.. Howitzers, like in the picture, were high trajectory, medium velocity Read more…
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Pickets Trading
The Civil War has often been called a war of brothers versus brothers. The fact that all the soldiers were Americans was exemplified by moments of fraternization like depicted in this sketch. Pickets were soldiers stationed at the front of an army as an early warning system of an enemy Read more…