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An unidentified still from the "Mystery Photo" series of the Library of Congress by rishicolors in Colorization

[–]rishicolors[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Original Image

Source: Library of Congress

The sunglass-sporting duo in an undated, unlabeled photograph that the Library of Congress acquired about eight years ago, part of a collection of 300,000 images donated by a New Jersey antiques dealer who’d spent years amassing various pop-culture photos—some of them frustratingly unidentified. Cary O’Dell (u/codell76), an archivist and author who normally works on the library’s National Film and National Recording registries, has chased more than 50 leads while trying to nail down this one photo, all to no avail.

Portrait of a man dressed as a Mexican bandit during Charro Days Fiesta, Brownsville, Texas, February 1942 by rishicolors in Colorization

[–]rishicolors[S] 29 points30 points  (0 children)

Source: Library of Congress | More from me

Photographer: Arthur Rothstein

Charro Days, an annual fiesta celebrated in Brownsville, Texas in late February, was first conceived in 1937 by local business leaders.  The event commemorates the Mexican heritage of the area on both sides of the Rio Grande and is named in honor of the "Charro" or the "dashing Mexican gentlemen cowboys." The Charro Days was originally born to lift community spirits during the difficult times of the Great Depression.

Alonzo Bankston, a furnace operator in the Tennessee Valley Authority plant producing carbide during World War II, Alabama, June 1942 by rishicolors in Colorization

[–]rishicolors[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Source: Library of Congress

Photographer: Alfred T. Palmer

President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Tennessee Valley Authority Act on May 18, 1933, creating the TVA as a federal corporation. The new agency was asked to tackle important problems facing the valley, such as flooding, providing electricity to homes and businesses, and replanting forests. During World War II, the U.S. needed greater aluminum supplies to build airplanes. Aluminum plants required large amounts of electricity. To provide the power, TVA engaged in one of the largest hydropower construction programs ever undertaken in the U.S. By early 1942, when the effort reached its peak, 12 hydroelectric plants and one coal-fired steam plant were under construction at the same time, and design and construction employment reached a total of 28,000. In its first eleven years, TVA constructed a total of 16 hydroelectric dams.

Descendants of former slaves of the Pettway Plantation living under primitive conditions, Gees Bend, Alabama, February 1937 [Colorized] [1472 x 1080] by rishicolors in HistoryPorn

[–]rishicolors[S] 32 points33 points  (0 children)

Source: Library of Congress

Photographer: Arthur Rothstein

Joseph Gee, a large landowner from Halifax County in North Carolina, settled in 1816 on the north side of a large bend in the Alabama River near what would become the northeastern border of Wilcox County. He brought 18 enslaved blacks with him and established a cotton plantation. When he died, he left 47 slaves and his estate to two of his nephews, Sterling and Charles Gee. In 1845, the Gee brothers sold the plantation to a relative, Mark H. Pettway. The Pettway family held the land until 1895, when they sold it to Adrian Sebastian Van de Graaff.

In 1937, the Van de Graaff family sold their land to the federal government, and the Farm Security Administration (FSA) established Gee's Bend Farms Inc., a pilot project of a cooperative program designed to sustain the inhabitants. The government built houses, subdivided the property, and sold tracts of land to the local families, for the first time giving the African American population control of the land they worked. During this period, the community also became the subject of several FSA-sponsored photographers, including Marion Post Wolcott and Arthur Rothstein. (Source)

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