Category: The Sunday porch

The Sunday porch: Dubbo

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“Portrait of four girls and a man on a verandah,” Dubbo area, New South Wales, ca. 1915, by Edward Challis Kempe, via National Library of Australia Commons on flickr.

I wonder if those are scented geraniums in the planter on the left?

The Rev. E.C. Kempe was an amateur photographer and principal of the Brotherhood of the Good Shepherd at Dubbo from 1912 to 1915. The Good Shepherd was one of several “Bush Brotherhoods,” Anglican religious orders that sent traveling priests to thinly populated rural districts. “They were described as a ‘band of men’ who could ‘preach like Apostles’ and ‘ride like cowboys’,” according to Wikipedia. Kempe left behind an album of 157 photographs from his time in the bush.

The Sunday porch: Paterson, New Jersey

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“Street of homes in the inner city of Paterson, New Jersey,” June 1974, by Danny Lyon for DOCUMERICA, via The U.S. National Archives Commons on flickr (both photos).

Lyon‘s original caption continues: “The inner city today is an absolute contradiction to the Main Stream America of gas stations, expressways, shopping centers and tract homes. It is populated by Blacks, Latins and the white poor. Most of all, the inner city environment is human beings, as beautiful and threatened as the 19th century buildings.”

DOCUMERICA was an 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.

You can see more of Lyon’s photos for DOCUMERICA here.

Coffee County, Alabama

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A repeat post from January 2014. . .
Drigger home, 1941 Coffee Co., Alabama, via Library of Congress“James F. Drigger’s farmhouse. Coffee County, Alabama,” August 1941, by John Collier, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

The large plants in front of the vines and along the walk are Ricinus communis  or castor beans.

They and the flowers make a nice approach to the lined-up open front and back doors.

John Collier was working for the Farm Security Administration when he took this photo. The Drigger family was receiving assistance to raise chickens under the “Food for Defense” program.

The Sunday porch: Houston, Texas

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Mexican-American home in Houston, Texas, April 1973, by Danny Lyon for the DOCUMERICA project, via The U.S. National Archives Commons on flickr (all three photos here).

Lyon made a series of 21 black and white photographs in East Texas in 1973. “They document the environments remaining from the 19th century in terms of architecture, commerce and lifestyles,” according to their original captions. “The pictures also compare the contemporary city showing displacement of the unique by the ordinary and noting current urban problems.”

Above: houses in the Fifth Ward, Houston. Click on the images to enlarge them.

DOCUMERICA was an 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.