An American town and its way of life, Southington, Connecticut. The Memorial Day parade moving down the main street. The small number of spectators is accounted for by the fact that the town's war factories did not close. The town hall is in the left foreground: photo by Fenno Jacobs, May 1942 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)
Tanners Mollett of Canton, Ohio, rests while cleaning a family grave on Memorial Day Weekend, Graveyard Hill, Shumate's Branch, West Virginia. Graveyard Hill is the site of an African American cemetery on the hillside above the sludge pond ("coal refuse impoundment") now filling Shumate's Branch. Each year former residents of the African American settlement at the mining town of Edwight return with their children and grandchildren to tend the graves of their relatives and hold a family reunion at the former home of Belle Wilson, a family ancestor. This is the one weekend of the year that Performance Coal Company (a subsidiary of A.T. Massey) opens the road into the mountains around Shumate's Branch to allow public access to this cemetery: photo by Terry Eiler, May 1996 (Coal River Folklife Collection/Archive of American Folk Culture, Library of Congress)
Felix Mollett of Canton, Ohio, cleaning a family grave on Memorial Day Weekend, Graveyard Hill, Shumate's Branch, West Virginia: photo by Terry Eiler, May 1996 (Coal River Folklife Collection/Archive of American Folk Culture, Library of Congress)
Two farmers talking outside of a main street bank, Roxboro, North Carolina, Memorial Day: photo by Jack Delano, May 1940 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)
Children at the Memorial Day ceremonies, Ashland, Aroostook County, Maine: photo by John Collier, May 1943 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)
One small boy at the ceremonies was the only representative of the Canadian war dead, Memorial Day, Ashland, Aroostook County, Maine: photo by John Collier, May 1943 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)
Girl scout at the Memorial Day ceremonies, Ashland, Aroostook County, Maine: photo by John Collier, May 1943 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)
Even with gasoline rationed, many people attended the Memorial Day ceremonies in cars, Ashland, Aroostook County, Maine: photo by John Collier, May 1943 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)
Marching from the cemetery at the conclusion of Memorial Day ceremonies, Ashland, Aroostook County, Maine: photo by John Collier, May 1943 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)
At the Memorial Day ceremonies, Gloucester, Massachusetts: photo by Gordon Parks, May 1943 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)
Washington, D. C. service department cleaning up after the Memorial Day parade: photo by John Ferrell, May 1942 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)
9 comments:
Great selection, Tom. Thanks for posting these. Some are a bit before my time (though then things really did move more slowly) but all are hauntingly familiar, as any truly human record ought to be.
Thanks, George. I wish I could say all of these images came from before my time too. But alas, no. Still, it's a gone world. I do remember many a memorial day parade, decorating one's bike spokes with colored bunting for the occasion & c. Nowadays, who knows, a funnel cloud would probably siphon its way down into the bells of all the horns in the brass band... while here in our neighborhood, what? Celebrating a new dismal slow-moving chapter in the annals of the winter that refused to end?
(A few nights ago I heard Josh Willingham comment that the nights are bit colder here than in Miami. Stay tuned for the long-range forecast, Josh.)
Hi Tom, it's M-day here not far in distance from the location in the first photo, relatively farther in time. The Parade due in one hour on Main st., someone at the pool yesterday said it's the widest Main st. in the (Whatever), and Thunderstorms have come to the Party.
This weekend is the annual open-air Madrid Book Fair, also traditionally rained on.
That's my report as of 9:02 AM, New England Time.
Vincent,
An up to the minute report was definitely needed, thank you. From the deep greens of the trees and lawns of Southington in May 1942 it does appear they have been having some rainfall. If one is to have rainfall, better that it at least be traditional. But those old World War II era vintage Eastman Kodachrome colours make America so much more deep and dark and green. Perhaps the air and water were better then, though. But probably that's what the geezers all say on memorial day, just to keep the memory of it green, between the cracks in the concrete. Thank you my friend and have a memorable if not also memory-free day.
maybe the photos from the
Farm Security Administration/need
more up to date juxtapositions
Elmo,
This was about a feeling. Photos two and three are not exactly up to date (15 years ago), but the dignity and pathos of that family cleaning up the graves on the one day a year when the mountaintop-removal coal company allows them in -- for me that caught the feeling.
But the present... Sarah Palin in leather on a Harley... if that's up to date, leave me in the past, please.
Dear TC,
Yes it was very unbecoming of
Sarah Palin(who is not qualified
to be President of the United States)
to say, at Rolling Thunder, that
she loved the smell of exhaust,though
on Memorial Day, that however is quite
All American...given fireworks all
over the nation and massive holiday
auto travel...all potentially,
dissipating energy into heat...
ie ?? climate change via the overuse of the 2nd law of thermodynamics...Also though you
didn't point it out, the Massey
Coal company which as you so
poignantly pointed out allowed the
observances at the family graveyard
once a year, was implicated in a
recent coal mine disaster with
many deaths with confirmed safety
violations. My idea about juxtapositions has to do with your
keen eye and the idea that we know
the present better by seeing it
side by side with the past. One fact about Palin that will probably
be disdained but is nevertheless
true...she's probably had more
wilderness experience than most
of the eco-warriors who parade
around as such and she did take on
the oil companies when she was a
very popular of Alaska but as an
old song goes "how you gonna keep
'em down on the tundra after they've seen DC"
Were I God and did I actually exist, and have some influence on things, one of my first priorities would be to keep that carbon-fuming, mammal-shooting woman out of my wilderness.
Dear TC,
It's the old cartesian dispute
about Lillie Palmer's butt vs
plain old American butt of Ali
McGraw plus as in poker a full
house of cynicism, yours and mine.
I'm sure Plato said something about
the ethical purity of poets functioning in the real world, I just
can't remember what it was.
I do know this,however,and that is
that if persons wanted to be
steeped in the eyes and ears of
poets they should frequent your
blog with breakfast. Some people
don't eat breakfast but it is the
most important meal of the day.
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