Mulberry Jam

I realized that I never have posted about one of my favorite blogs: Shorpy. It’s quite different from the text-based blogs I usually follow. This is a photo blog, that draws on national archival photos for high-resolution images dating back a hundred years and sometimes more. It’s especially strong on photos from documentary photographers like Dorothea Lange and Lewis Hine. Civil War-era photos also get included with regularity.

The most touching entries are the many photos of working children. These little factory workers, oyster shuckers and tobacco pickers show faces and bodies marked by hard work, but also by a kind of pride. They have a self-possession and self-reliance you won’t see in our era, but many also look old before their time. See this photo of an oyster shucker in 1917.
What fascinates me most are the unsentimental shots taken of mundane, everyday scenes. Places like street corners and fairgrounds, community gatherings and schools. The clothes, the architecture, the advertising signs! I can look for hours.