I love this site that I’ve recently come across. Called Square America, it is a site dedicated to preserving vintage photos from the first 3/4 of the 20th century. Not art photography but everyday family photos, police photos and other vernacular photos of the time. These photos give a beautiful narrative to life in America during this time and are really engrossing. I could spend hours just browsing through the many galleries.
There are many, many great galleries of photos coveing a multitude of subjects, some that contain police mugshots, photos that chronicle television coverage of JFK’s funeral (actual pictures of a TV!) and, my favorite, the ones that have photobooth pictures that play as a slide show to give the effect of moving pictures. If you click on the photo above you will see a great example as the young girl ages through the pictures until she is well into middle age.
The creator of this site is Nicholas Osborn who also has a book of these photos that he compiled in collaboration with photographers Michael Williams and Richard Cahan, called Who We Were. It looks like a great, albeit late, gift for those who love such things as Americana and how we lived in the last century.
If you can find a few minutes to just browse a bit, check out this site. There is definitely something for everyone. Here’s a beautiful Christmas memory from their site. I think it might have been inspired by the poor little tree from A Charlie Brown Christmas.
Redtree Times 