Tag: U.S. National Archives on flickr

Peace flower

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Anti-war demonstrators, National Archives on flickr“Female demonstrator offering a flower to a military police officer,” West Potomac Park or Pentagon grounds, Arlington, Virginia, October 21, 1967, by S.Sgt. Albert R. Simpson, via U.S. National Archives Commons on flickr.

Flower Power originated in Berkeley, California, as a symbolic action of protest against the Vietnam War. In his November 1965 essay titled “How to Make a March/Spectacle,” [Allen] Ginsberg advocated that protesters should be provided with “masses of flowers” to hand out to policemen, press, politicians and spectators. . . .

In October 1967, [Abbie] Hoffman and Jerry Rubin helped organize the March on the Pentagon using Flower Power concepts to create a theatrical spectacle. The idea included a call for marchers to attempt to levitate the Pentagon. When the marchers faced off against more than 2,500 Army National Guard troops forming a human barricade in front of the Pentagon, demonstrators held flowers and some placed flowers in the soldier’s rifle barrels.

Photographs of flower-wielding protesters at the Pentagon March became seminal images of the 1960s anti-war protests.

— Wikipedia, “Flower Power“

The winter garden: Center Market

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Center Market, Washington, D.C., February 18, 1915, via National ArchivesForced azaleas, forsythias, and bulbs at a flower stand, February 18, 1915, by U.S. Department of Agriculture, via U.S. National Archives Commons on flickr.

Center Market was located at 7th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C., where the National Archives building now stands. The red brick German Renaissance Revival structure was built between 1872 and 1878 (replacing an 1801 market). It held over 700 vendors in its halls and courtyard and was possibly the country’s largest market building.

Center Market, Washington, D.C., February 18, 1915, via National Archives

The Market closed in 1931, a victim of the rise of community chain stores and increased availability of canned and frozen foods — as well as the McMillan Commission‘s vision for a white marble, neoclassical center for the capital city.

Center Market, Washington, D.C., February 18, 1915, via National Archives

There are more photos of Center Market here and a more complete history here.  Click on any photo above to enlarge it.

Vintage landscape: great deal

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Victory garden poster, National Archives“Victory Garden Plots Free For Employees ca. 1942 – ca. 1943” poster, created by the Office of Emergency Management, War Production Board, via U.S. National Archives Commons on flicker.

The location is Brierly’s Lane near the intersection with Duquesne Road (Bull Run Road).  I think this is in Munhall, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh.

The Sunday porch: Centerville, Calif.

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Japanese-American grandmother on porch 1942, U.S. National Archives“Grandmother of farm family awaits evacuation bus. Evacuees of Japanese ancestry will be housed in War Relocation Authority centers for the duration,” May 9, 1942, by Dorothea Lange for the U.S. War Relocation Authority, via U.S. National Archives on flickr.

Centerville is a community in northern California. All along the Pacific coast — from 1942 to January 1945 — over 110,000 people of Japanese heritage were forced into internment camps.  Sixty-two percent were American citizens.

In 1988, in the Civil Liberties Act, the U.S. Government admitted that its actions had been based on “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.”

Life in gardens: Little Duck Key

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Out of the cradle endlessly rocking. . .

Little Duck Keys, 1975, via Natl. Archives“American dreams at Little Duck Key [– part of the Florida Keys]. Commercial camping sites and travel trailer courts have sprung up throughout the Keys. Even on the smaller Keys like Little Duck, where no facilities have yet been constructed, camping is permitted by local authorities,” ca. 1975.

Little Duck Keys, 1975, via Natl. Archives“Campers on Little Duck Key sleep in their own hammocks,” ca. 1975.

Little Duck Key, Fla., 1975, via National Archives“Beach at Little Duck Key. Little Duck, in the lower Florida Keys, is a tiny island which has not been commercially developed[;] the beach is open to visitors, who are not always careful to preserve its unspoiled appearance,” ca. 1975.

All three photos here were taken by Flip Schulke for DOCUMERICA, a 1970’s photography program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.  They are shown with the original captions.

The EPA hired over 100 photographers to “document subjects of environmental concern.”  The work continued until 1977 and left behind 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 U.S. National Archives, which held an exhibit of the photos, “Searching for the Seventies,” in 2013. 

There are more pictures from DOCUMERICA here.

Over the sterile sands and the fields beyond, where the child leaving his bed wander’d alone, bareheaded, barefoot . . . .

Borne hither, ere all eludes me, hurriedly,
A man, yet by these tears a little boy again,
Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves,
I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter,
Taking all hints to use them, but swiftly leaping beyond them,
A reminiscence sing.

— Walt Whitman, from “Out of the Cradle. . .“