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.
An encore porch from 2013. . .
Front porch, near the Koyukuk River at Wiseman Creek, Wiseman, Alaska, July 1984, by Jet Lowe for an Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division (all photos here).
For over six decades, this little porch sheltered many hours of masculine conviviality. In 1913, it fronted the Siverly and Bowker Saloon. The following year, the building was sold to a fraternal organization, Pioneers of Alaska, and then used as one of its local chapters — an “Igloo;” it was Igloo No. 8.
By 1972, the building had been sold again. At the time of these photos, it was the home of the owner’s son.
Above: the back porch and entrance to the kitchen.
Above: the side view.
“Typical houses of Morgantown, West Virginia,” June 1935, by Walker Evans, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
Evans may have taken the photo from an electric post like this one.
Back garden and porch of Hungarian-American coal miner’s home, Chaplin, West Virginia, September 1938, by Marion Post Wolcott, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division (all three photos).
Wolcott was on assignment for the U.S. Farm Security Administration.
Her neighbor — top left, in the straw hat — seems to have had a good flower garden, as well.
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.
enclos*ure 