The Sunday porch: lunch with friends


“Nellie Wright at home” with friends and a sandwich, Mountain Park, Alberta, ca. 1935, by Charles Lee, via Provincial Archives of Alberta Commons on flickr.

From about 1912 until 1950, Mountain Park was a coal mining town, producing steam coal for the railroads. Today it is a ghost town.

The Sunday porch: North Philadelphia

“Middle class row house [stoops] in Black neighborhood of North Philadelphia,” August 1973, by Dick Swanson (his caption) for DOCUMERICA via U.S. National Archives Commons on flickr.

Swanson took this picture for DOCUMERICA, a photography program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). From 1972 to 1977, it hired over 100 photographers to “document subjects of environmental concern.” They created an archive of about 80,000 images. In addition to recording damage to the nation’s landscapes, the project captured “the era’s trends, fashions, problems, and achievements,” according to the Archives, which held an exhibit of the photos, “Searching for the Seventies,” in 2013.

London, U.K.

moncure-daniel-conway-c-1890-london-house-divided-project-dickinson-college
Moncure Daniel Conway and family at their London home, ca. 1890s, photographer unknown, via House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College.

Moncure Conway (third from the left) was a southern abolitionist, born in Virginia to a prominent slave-owning family and educated at Dickinson. After college, he first became a circuit-riding Methodist minister, but then a crisis of conscience led him to further study at Harvard and ministry in the Unitarian Church. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he undertook a mission to promote the anti-slavery, pro-Union cause to Great Britain. London became his home for most of the rest of his life as he led the nonconformist South Place Ethical Society.

From the mallets in the picture, members of the family seem to have just finished a croquet game. The maid is bringing out tea.