Morgantown, W.Va.

“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.

Fairfield, Alabama

“Garden – lot 9, block 11. . . .  Garden of $20 a month home,” Fairfield, Alabama, 1917,
via Frank and Frances Carpenter Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Fairfield was a planned community built in 1910 for the workers of U.S. Steel’s plants in the Birmingham area. Its (mostly white) residents could either rent or purchase modern houses with indoor plumbing and central heating. There were also parks and playgrounds, churches, a public library, and 30,000 newly planted trees and shrubs.

The photograph is one of over sixteen thousand created or collected by Frank G. Carpenter and his daughter, Frances, to illustrate his geography textbooks and popular travel books.

The Sunday porch: Detroit Lakes

Fairyland Cottages, West Lake Lane, Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, 1980, by John Margolies, via John Margolies Roadside America archive, Library of Congress Commons on flickr.

The twelve cabins were built in 1938, modeled (roughly) after the cottage in Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. They were placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989. Unfortunately, this did not protect them from demolition in 2008 — burned by the fire department in a training exercise. There are two condominium buildings on the site now.

The card game

“Untitled,” via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

In the Library’s online catalogue, this picture appears among U.S. Farm Security Administration photos taken by Jack Delano on dairy farms in New Hampshire and Vermont in August 1941.

Cortland, New York

“Cast-iron fountain piece originally from Milan, Italy [ca. 1890], on the lawn of a house in Cortland, New York,” September 1940, by Jack Delano, via (and here) Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.