Since hand labor is still necessary for the production of the blemish-free fruits and vegetables that consumers demand, migrant workers shift from place to place picking fruits and vegetables to feed a hungry nation. Although invisible to most people, the presence of migrant farm workers in many rural communities throughout the nation is undeniable. Today, between […]
Tag: American history
Root hog or die, – these photographs show how the people of Missouri survived the Great Depression
The Great Depression and drought hit the people of Missouri, the ‘Show Me” state, hard just as in other states. However, the people found a way to survive in the rural sections. Some of the ways they made do with whatever they had is pretty amazing. These photographs ‘show’ how life was in 1936 for many […]
Vivid photographs reveal Sharecroppers lives in Georgia
Sharecropping is a system of agriculture in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on the land. Sharecropping occurred extensively in the Southern United States during the Reconstruction era (1865–1877). The South had been devastated by war; planters had ample land but little money for wages or taxes. At the […]
Did you know that the brother of Napoleon lived with a beautiful Quaker maiden in New Jersey?
*Note: Some of the language below may be a little antiquated because its excerpts and transcriptions from a the book -Transcription from Historic Houses of New Jersey By Weymer Jay Mills .J. B. Lippincott Company – written in 1902 = The original words provide a unique glimpse of the people and early times in New […]
Go back in time with these pictures of people and old houses from Rockingham County, North Carolina in the 1930s
Nestled in the ridge of the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina, is the county of Rockingham. The county is also known as “North Carolina’s North Star.” Created on December 29, 1785 from Guilford County, it was named after Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham, the British Prime Minister from 1765 and again in 1782. […]
The Comic Strip that inspired a nation – is it still practiced?
A comic strip created a national phenomenon across the America in the late 1930’s that is still celebrated today. Women inviting men out on a date is more accepted today, but this was almost unheard of before 1937. Alfred Gerald Capp’s was the writer for a popular hillbilly comic strip, Li’l Abner in the 1930s. […]
Images of a 1939 coal-mining town’s playground for children (vintage video)
Children living in the coal mining town of Kempton, Maryland-West Virginia had difficulty finding a place to play as these photographs taken May 1939 by photographer John Vachon reveal. Children playing in street of company town. Kempton, West Virginia Children playing in street of company town, Kempton, West Virginia. Note open ditches Children playing in […]
Great photographs of Kempton coal miners of Maryland-West Virginia from 1939
In May, 1939, photographer John Vachon visited the coal-mining town of Kempton, Maryland-West Virginia when the miners were on a 30 day strike before their annual contract was renewed. The song below, We Done Quit, was sung by Sam Johnson and recorded by George G. Korson at the Scott’s Mine in West Virginia in 1940. […]
These photographs depict the type life Loretta Lynn sings about [pics & film]
The Kempton, Maryland-West Virginia coal mine has been abandoned. None of the miners were expecting it In early April 1950 a notice was placed in the window at the company store that the mines would close in a week. None of the miners were expecting this. “At midnight April 15, 1950, the Buxton & Landstreet […]
Tragic deaths when Ice bridge breaks – bodies of heroes never found!
While operating a small shanty that served hot beverages and snacks on a frozen river to tourists that were visiting the “Ice bridge”, a man heard the ice below him tremble and he immediately sensed disaster. The morning was said to be a cold and misty one, the weather and the time of day, about noon, perhaps limiting […]