Women in the WWII effort

[SolaresLarrave]

Yahoo! had an interesting online gallery of photographs now in the Library of Congress archives. They illustrate the participation of women in the war effort during the years of WW2. Even though it's not mentioned in the accompanying info, I'm sure they were shot in Kodachrome. These are 4X5 transparencies. They must be a pleasure to look...

Here is the link TO THE PHOTOS and make sure to click on the "view gallery" button. 🙂

Enjoy!

 

[Pablito]

Yes, Kodachrome with flash bulbs.

 

[TXForester]

Nice. You can find more like these at shorpy.com

 

[Mr_Flibble]

Yep, Typical Alfred Palmer 'propaganda' shots for Uncle Sam. Him and Jack Delano produced many of my favorite Kodachrome images.

 

[Bill58]

My now-deceased mom built B-25 bombers at the North American Aviation Garland, TX plant.

 

[krötenblender]

MUCH more of this...

MUCH more of this...

As I wrote in another thread (http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2043230#post2043230)

Another book going in a similar direction is a collection of photographs from documenting american life of farmers, citizens, war preparations and the like, initiated by the FSA/OWI (Farm Security Administration / Office of War Information). The book is called "Bound for Glory" and contains photographs from 1939 - 1943. The really impressive images in the book are made with the then brand new Kodachrome film and many of the images are simply mind blowing. My copy is a book from the Library of Congress from 2004 and the print quality is outstanding. It was by far my best christmas present this year from my wife. I can really recommend that book. Some sample pictures can be seen here:

http://www.good.is/posts/slideshow-kodachrome-slides-from-the-farm-security-administration/

Also, all photographs (not only from the book, but all of the FSA/OWI-collection can be viewed online for free here:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsahtml/fahome.html
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsachtml/fsowhome.html

But since they make it very annoying to browse the images, I still recommend the book.

PS: I think, there should be a US-government law, to reanimate Kodachrome and make it available to the world for the next hundred years... 😉

 

[Pablito]

Yep, Typical Alfred Palmer 'propaganda' shots for Uncle Sam. Him and Jack Delano produced many of my favorite Kodachrome images.

But their styles were very different.

 

[SolaresLarrave]

I have a copy of "Bound for Glory" because it was reviewed in NPR. There's even another book, titled "Kodachrome." And yes, there ought to be a law about Kodachrome, but try getting any political party into backing it...

Thanks for posting comments and links! 🙂 And keep them coming!!

 

[noisycheese]

My now-deceased mom built B-25 bombers at the North American Aviation Garland, TX plant.

My now deceased Mom made 20mm AA projectiles for the antiaircraft canons onboard U.S. Navy heavy cruisers during WW II.

Mom's brother was on a heavy cruiser in the Pacific, shooting down Japanese war planes with the 20mm AA that my Mom had made (not
sure what the name of his ship was). While they were doing their part, my Dad was busy killing Hitler's soldiers in Europe. Dad's brother (George) left the top half of his skull in a trench in France.

Without their sacrifices, it could well be that none of us would be here today, living the lives of relative ease that their sweat and blood made possible.

They, along with Bill58's mom, were part of America's greatest generation. May God rest their souls.