Bar Belles

Crab boil night at a bar in Raceland, Louisiana. Other photos in this series show tables covered with crab.

Photo by Russell Lee, 1938.

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[American Memory link]

Dancing the Night Away

Club DeLisa, Chicago. 1942.

Photo by Jack Delano.

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[American Memory link]

to locate this image, use search terms: Chicago, dancing, music

Roughneck

An oil-field worker in Oklahoma, 1939.

Photo by Russell Lee

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[American Memory link]

to locate this image, use search terms: oil, worker, Oklahoma

10 People, 3 Small Rooms

Taken in the "Mexican section" of San Diego in 1941. The father is an agricultural worker.

The family lives in what is described as "three small rooms, with no bath...They use an outside toilet shared with five other families." In addition to the eight children in this photo, another is on the way.

(photographer: Russell Lee)

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[American Memory link]

to locate this image, use search terms: two adults, eight children

More Laundry

The caption accompanying this photo is worthy of being quoted in full:
"Lititz, Pennsylvania. Mrs. R.W. (Elizabeth) Almoney, forty-seven (center rear), has had eleven children. She works as a gauge inspector at the Animal Trap Company and on Sunday does the washing. Her husband (left) works in the local chocolate factory. Daughter Arline, twenty (right), who also works at the Animal Trap Company, is cooking Sunday dinner. There are three brothers in the service, and one Boy Scout, age thirteen, in the family."

Before birth control was legal, and prior to automatic clothes washers, there was a lot more work - and a lot less play.

Photo taken in 1942 by Marjory Collins.
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[American Memory link]

to locate this image, use search terms: eleven, children, factory

Lumberjack

This gent, a First Nations lumberjack from Canada, was photographed in Maine during the 1943 Spring pulpwood drive.

Photo by John Collier.

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[American Memory link]

to locate this image, use search terms: Indian, woodsman

MacKenzie King, Prime Minister

Love the shades.

Taken in Washington, D.C. during a visit by Canada's Prime Minister, MacKenzie King, in 1943.

Photo by Ann Rosener.

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[American Memory link]

to locate this image, use search terms: Prime, Minister, King

Muscle

Members of the Coast Guard at Fort Story, Virginia, cleaning a large gun/cannon after it was fired.

Photo by Alfred T. Palmer, 1942.

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[American Memory link]

to locate this image, use search term: plenty of muscle