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.