Ruston, Washington

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“Children play in yard of Ruston home, while Tacoma smelter stack showers area with arsenic and lead residue,” August 1972, via The U.S. National Archives Commons on flickr.

The photo was taken by Gene Daniels for DOCUMERICA, an early photography program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). It is shown here with its original caption.

From 1972 to 1977, the EPA hired over 100 photographers to “document subjects of environmental concern.” They created an archive of about 20,000 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.

The Sunday porch: summer reading

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reading-fonds-1266-item-5873-city-of-toronto-archives“M. Laing reading on porch at Bala, July 29, 1925,” via The Globe and Mail Collections (1266, item 5873), City of Toronto Archives.

‘Bala’ is probably Bala, Ontario, a summer cottage community north of Toronto.

Odense, Denmark

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“Dining Room of Christian Kold School,” near Odense, Denmark, ca. 1915, an instructional hand-colored lantern slides, via OSU Special Collections & Archives (Oregon State University) Commons on flickr.

I like the repetition of white squares and the somewhat wilted cornflowers (?) across the room. The slide was used during university lectures, possibly about alternative educational methods, including the Danish folk high school movement.

Perhaps the outstanding feature of the Folk High [S]chools is the sociability which is developed. Dining quarters are provided for all students and in the dining room the faculty and students always eat together. . . .

— Image caption from the lecture booklet

Key West, Florida

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Royal Poinciana (Delonix regia) in bloom, Key West, Florida, ca. 1945, by Joseph Janney Steinmetz, via Florida Memory (State Library and Archives of Florida) Commons on flickr.

USSR

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children-in-park-1930s-soviet-union-library-of-congressPreschool children watering flowers in the Soviet Union, between 1930 and 1940, National Council of American-Soviet Friendship, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.