Mini-me

Back yard of Company Officers’ Quarters Type D, Hamilton Field, Novato, California, 1994, by David G. De Vries for this Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

The Type D Quarters are an example of Spanish Colonial Revival style “adapted to reflect California’s mission heritage in a dramatic departure from traditional military architecture,” according to the survey.

The high life II

“Children’s playground on roof of large New York [City] store while mothers are shopping,” ca. 1919, by Bain News Service, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division (both photos).


There’s a good article on early 20th century New York City roof gardens here.

The high life

“Penthouse on a skyscraper, probably New York City, ca. early 20th c., by Bain News Service, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

The Sunday porch: Windsor, Vermont

Back porches of apartment houses in Windsor, Vermont, 1941, by Jack Delano, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

The NAMCO Block* was built between 1920 and 1922 for the workers of the National Acme Company, the town’s main employer in the early 20th century. The building now has a place on the National Register of Historic Places.


*72 apartments.

Nambour, Queensland

The Tambo family posing among the plants in front of their homestead of Malayta Hill near Nambour, Queensland, 1906, by A. W. Newbery, via State Library of Queensland Commons on flickr.

The Tambos were among the tens of thousands of South Sea Islanders who were either kidnapped or recruited to be labourers in the sugarcane fields of Queensland during the mid to late 19th century — or they were their descendants.

At the time of this photo, most Islanders who were still in Australia faced repatriation or deportation by the government under legislation related to the White Australia policy.

The image above was used in an 1906 photo-essay in The Queenslander entitled “The Undesirables – Kanaka* Settlers on the Blackall Range.” “Kanaka” was once a term for the Islanders, now considered offensive. There is little other text that I can find, but the title seems to refer to the process of forced repatriation.

Descendants of those who escaped or were exempted from removal now form the largest Melano-Polynesian ethnic group in Australia.


*It means “man” in the Hawaiian language, according to Wikipedia.