Row Houses, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, August 1973, by Dick Swanson for DOCUMERICA, via U.S. National Archives Commons on flickr.
Swanson took this picture for DOCUMERICA, a 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.
“Group of people bowling on a wooden lane erected in a yard,” July 4, 1861, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
I just found this photo. It was taken exactly one year before yesterday’s picture, probably by James Hunter,* who would host the 1862 picnic.
The Library’s online catalogue says that “Mrs. H. Bowling and Coleman Sellers, Jr.,” have been identified in this image, although it doesn’t say where they are — probably the woman bowling (Mrs. H., bowling†) and perhaps the boy in charge of setting up the pins.
The full stereograph. I do hope they removed the baby from the lane before she bowled.
“By the mid-1800s, the game of ninepins was so popular that wealthy families installed bowling lanes at their estates. . . , ” according toAmerican Profile. “When some states outlawed ninepins [in the 1830s and 40s] because it encouraged gambling, the modern game of tenpins evolved to skirt the laws.” I’m not sure if there are nine pins in this picture or ten. What looks like one middle pin may be two pins lined up.
*James Hunter may have been co-owner of the Print and Dye Works in Hestonville, Pennsylvania.
†H. for Hunter? Coleman Junior’s father was Coleman Sellers II, a prominent engineer and inventor from Philadelphia. — as well as an amateur photographer.
Fourth of July picnic at Mr. James Hunter‘s, Hestonville, Pennsylvania, 1862, a stereograph by Coleman Sellers, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
Hestonville is now a neighborhood of Philadelphia.
Vegetable gardens beside workers’ housing; factory in the background, place unknown, between 1941 and 1942, color slides by unknown photographer for the U.S. Office of War Information, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
It was suggested by commenters on the photos’ flickr pages that the factory is for steel and the location is Pittsburg or Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
A family in front of their Pennsylvania home, between 1890 and 1901, by The United States View Company, via Library Company of Philadelphia Commons on flickr.
The United States View Company of Richfield, Pennsylvania, was established in the 1890s. Like several similar businesses — as well as hundreds of independent itinerant photographers — its employees traveled to small towns and took pictures of people posing in front of their homes or other local landmark buildings.
Row Houses, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, August 1973, by Dick Swanson for DOCUMERICA, via U.S. National Archives Commons on flickr.
enclos*ure 