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Ansel Adams’ pictures of LA recall an era of war factories and 10-cent hot dogs
- hondo77 8y agoImagine getting dressed up to go to a bowling alley. We are such bums these days.
- hellofunk 8y agoNot to mention, most men wore top hats in those times.
- nradov 8y agoMost men wore some kind of hat outdoors, but top hats were already mostly out of style by that time and worn only with formal attire.
- dan-robertson 8y agoConsidering how choice of hat signaled class I think you would find that most men did not wear top hats when these pictures were taken. If you look at the pictures in the article, few people are wearing hats and no one is wearing a top hat. I think top hats were also going out of fashion before and during the war.
- hrktb 8y agoI find really interesting that over time that style of clothes just became "dressed up", while technically advanced clothing with comfortable cuts is seen as casual or working outfits. Even discussing with people in their 30ies, they'll often throw "a good fitted suit should be as comfortable as pyjamas" without questionning why we don't live in what would be outdoor pyjamas.
- lsc 8y ago>Even discussing with people in their 30ies, they'll often throw "a good fitted suit should be as comfortable as pyjamas" without questionning why we don't live in what would be outdoor pyjamas. I don't know anyone who thinks that suits are as comfy as pajamas; In spite of being well into my late 30s, I've only heard that in fiction; I suspect it's one of those fictional things; we'd all like to be the man who is so well-tailored that his suit was as comfortable as pajamas. (Of course, I live in California, so I think outerwear is something highly engineered that you keep in your travel chest, so perhaps this is a subject I shouldn't speak on too much. ) Also, Lindybeige, probably my favorite commentator on historical clothing, disagrees with you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQcJfTGbjuo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQcJfTGbjuo He prefers the cloak: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yN8cYd3poIk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yN8cYd3poIk
- Bucephalus355 8y agoUS Steel has, of all things, a massive steel mill compound in the Utah desert near Provo. It was built there during WWII to have steel fabrication closer to ship building on the West coast. The other reason it is there is that the contingency plan for a Nazi landing and invasion of the East Coast was to retreat behind the Rocky Mountains.
- dylan604 8y ago>The other reason it is there is that the contingency plan for a Nazi landing and invasion of the East Coast was to retreat behind the Rocky Mountains. That's the first time I've heard of that plan. Would love to read more about that if you have any resources for it. A quick cursory search online wasn't too successful. Retreating behind the Rockies would leave a huge amount of space and resources available, and presumably the majority of the citizens. Would places like steel mills or other industrial facilities be sabotaged so they could not be used by the opposition?
- Bucephalus355 8y agoThat factoid is from this book: The Corporation : A Centennial Biography of United States Steel Corporation, 1901-2001 https://www.amazon.com/dp/1887969128/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/1887969128/ To answer your other question, there were plans in place to evacuate most of the capital via rail behind the Rockies as well. The Soviets did this tactic for real during the German invasion and were quite successful at it.
- dylan604 8y agoThanks for the link. I find these mostly untaught tidbits of what the US did domestically during the war very interesting. War bonds, rationing, scrap metal drives etc. The contrast with today's "war effort" is mind boggling. Current "war efforts" include tax cuts. It's so 1984ish to me. We've always been at war with...
- mikeash 8y ago
- Aloha 8y agoI'd love to see the rest of these. I grew up in the LA area, my mom worked in aeropspace, while there were shades of this Los Angeles left in my childhood, most of it was swept away by the shovel of progress and growth that happenened post war.
- olivermarks 8y agohttp://www.drkrm.com/ansel_adams.html http://www.drkrm.com/ansel_adams.html https://tessa.lapl.org/cdm/search/collection/photos/searchterm/ansel%20adams/field/all/mode/all/conn/and/order/title/ad/asc https://tessa.lapl.org/cdm/search/collection/photos/searchte...
- Aloha 8y agoJust fantastic, thank you!
- hirundo 8y agoIn those pictures I counted just two people who looked overweight, and at worst they were a little chubby. Yet there's plenty of food in the photos, and it's ice cream, soft drinks, burgers, hot dogs, etc., the same stuff routinely blamed for the obesity epidemic four score years later. I suppose a lot of that is that these photos are from public places, and most of these people ate out rarely, mostly eating healthier from their lunch boxes and at their dinner tables.
- KSS42 8y agoAlso, they were more active: - most likely didn't own a car : transit + walking - no TV, internet etc - working in a factory
- nradov 8y agoEven in the 1940s, most middle-class families owned at least one car. But during WWII, gasoline was rationed so people did drive less for a few years.
- gist 8y ago> most of these people ate out rarely, mostly eating healthier from their lunch boxes Yes to 'eat out rarely' definitely was like that (even in the 60's). But more importantly food wasn't prepared at home to make you want to eat more of it than you needed to (the average person). Things were done by mom and not enhanced in a way to make you overeat. Very important and often overlooked.
- pm90 8y agoYou have an interesting point. Although... I always seemed to think the culprit wasn’t just unhealthy meals but the snacks/soda etc.
- adventured 8y agoThe US didn't have a meaningful problem with obesity until ~1990 forward. If you look at high school yearbook photos from the 1980s, almost all the people were thin. These are young persons that should have high metabolisms and high rates of activity, so you'd expect that. That thinness changed noticeably and rapidly through the 1990s. I went to high school in the 1990s and could see that shift very plainly during the decade. All childhood age range obesity was typically about 5% until the early 1980s. Now the combined average is around 15% From 1960 to 1980 adult obesity was typically 12% to 15%. Today that would nearly qualify as the thinnest country in the developed world (only Japan, South Korea and Singapore beat it now). From 1980 to 1990 it went up five or six points. By 2000 it had doubled (since the early 1980s) to ~30%. So approximately a doubling of the obesity rate in 15-20 years. Contrast 1980 US at ~15% obesity, with present day Denmark, Italy, Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland which are all considered fairly thin at ~20% obesity rates.
- gist 8y ago> “The weather was bad over a rather long period,” he wrote in a letter. “None of the pictures were very good.” Before I read that statement my first thought was 'these are not that good'. [1] And in fact I actually question (despite what appears to be proof that they are Adam's photos ie 'given to the library' that they really are his photos. I did photography (and made money from it; had a darkroom at home growing up) and artistically it would be extremely odd for someone (especially of his caliber) to release photos that were not up to visual standards. It's part a sense of pride and partly just you don't show your work if it's not good. And you care about your work and you definitely care if the product is not quality and so on. I remember another photographer (whose last name ironically was also Adams) when I was in high school saying that 'nothing leaves my darkroom that isn't ready for printing or publication'. These photos are actually prompting me to see if there is anything about Ansel Adams that I should take into consideration that would change what I am thinking about this. Something doesn't add up or make sense. [1] I don't mean visually they aren't interesting. But they look quality wise (even considering he said the weather wasn't nice [2] to be very poor. I say that as someone who has printed photos and knows the difference. [2] That could also be part of the 'cover' story to explain why they aren't quality that one would expect.
- hirundo 8y agoI would guess that it's not unusual for a photographer to do much better work on a subject that they love than on a random assignment. I suspect Mr. Adams would spend days chasing a shot of mountains and clouds, adagissimo, but shoot a lunch crowd as fast as he could get away with, allegrissimo.
- coldtea 8y ago>I did photography (and made money from it; had a darkroom at home growing up) and artistically it would be extremely odd for someone (especially of his caliber) to release photos that were not up to visual standards. Photographers released all kinds of photos, even when they weren't up to "visual standards". It was "f8 and be there" when it came to photo-journalism, not some aesthetic ideal. Besides those are the photographs that weren't picked for the story.
- tomcam 8y ago
- abruzzi 8y agoBeing a photo geek, I’d love to know more about the technical side of these photos. Angel Adams is most often associated with large format (8x10 inch or larger) sheet film and zone system exposure and developing. But the subject matter of these photos is not conducive to that kind of photography. We’re these shot on 35mm or was he using a handheld large format (like a press camera)? I’d also love to know the film used.
- rpeden 8y agoWhen I saw these pictures before, I noticed they were all square. So probably not 35mm. You could expose square photos on 35mm film, but it would be unusual. So probably likely medium format of some kind? Adams was known to use the Zeiss Ikonta B, which would have been available in the 1930s: https://www.cameraquest.com/zikontb.htm https://www.cameraquest.com/zikontb.htm So I think there's a decent chance it was used for these shots, but I've found no definite confirmation of this...yet.
- ghaff 8y agoHe used a variety of cameras. [1] [1] https://improvephotography.com/53059/what-kind-of-camera-did-ansel-adams-use/ https://improvephotography.com/53059/what-kind-of-camera-did... Your guess seems likely. He apparently also used a Hasselblad 500C a fair bit but that's a later camera.
- rpeden 8y agoYou're definitely correct, the Zeiss was one among many he used over the course of his career. I knew about the 500c but didn't mention it here because he wouldn't have been able to use it for these shots unless he were a time traveler. :)
- abruzzi 8y agoGood catch. I was looking at them on my iPad, and the site puts enough junk on my screen that I can’t see the entire photo at once. That would also make a 4x5 press camera unlikely. It seems the 6x6 folder makes sense.
- lostlogin 8y agoWhat a lack of personal space. It might be that the photos are staged, but the people are looking natural and comfortable. This sort of thing is personal and cultural, but having someone sit down so close that our shoulders touch would not make me happy.
- coldtea 8y agoYes, people were less isolated and privy to their little bubbles back then. Heck, even urban neighbors got to know each other and hang around the front etc...
- tjr225 8y agoNow we just get on the internet and bitch at total strangers. What an awful gnashing of teeth it has all become, too!
- coldtea 8y agoI'm introverted myself, but I think being around people makes us better as persons. Even more so if its all kinds of people (e.g. a community, neighbors, etc) and not just our self-selected friends. The internet, on the other hand, usually has the opposite effects: it multiplies the pathologist of the individual, and makes them the god of their own puny universe.
- tjr225 8y agoAgreed. I still think there is potential here(on the Internet), though.
- claydavisss 8y agoFactory workers weren't any wealthier in 1944. If the pictures were taken a few miles away in Hancock Park, you would see plenty of huge properties
- dan-robertson 8y agoI would put it down to culture. Also note that people’s shoulders aren’t touching apart from the group looking over the pier and maybe the men on the bench looking into the city. I think most of those people are just sitting a normal distance apart, and I would argue that this is basically the correct distance to sit from someone you know (seems to be the case in all the photos) when on a shared surface like a bench. It’s different with chairs because it is harder to shift a small distance and typically chairs cannot be moved so close together without hitting each other or getting fingers trapped in between
- village-idiot 8y agoI live near Santa Monica, I have a hard time reconciling the wealthy beach town of today with the idea of it being a blue collar factory town 75 years ago.
- pfranz 8y agoIf you look carefully there are still little signs. The Aero Theatre was built as a 24-hour movie house by Donald W. Douglas for their aircraft employees. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aero_Theatre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aero_Theatre
- njarboe 8y agoI like how the hot dog stand has signs for soft drinks from three different soft drink companies. Now days restaurants almost always have a deal with one company and only serve those brands. It would be nice to be able to get a Coke or a Pepsi.
- TwoBit 8y agoThere are places that sell both. Arco mini marts have drink machines that dispense both, for example.
- dmix 8y agoMini marts are different from food vendors... they don't have similar arrangements. If anything only for promotions, not exclusivity like a restaurant chain would agree to.
- dyu 8y agoI think they provide the machines as an incentive, and in turn it can only dispense their brands.
- niftich 8y agoThe "man on an unidentified street in Burbank" [4] is likely on today's Lincoln Street. The railroad offers little clues; unfortunately, mileposts [5] are not visible -- the '40-30' on the sign is a speed limit [6]. The railroad crossing there is now closed; there's one slightly to the west on Buena Vista Street, from which Google Streetview has a similar view of the ridgeline [1]. A simulated view of the ridgeline from Lincoln Street [2] matches closely with the ridgeline seen in the photo. The N-S orientation of the street and the nearest building corresponds with the buildings seen on the right side of this south-facing 1939 aerial photo [3]. The photographer must be facing east-northeast, because the mountains towards the south are much further away and appear less prominent on the skyline. A south-facing photo would have had to been taken from the other side of the factory, which was the side with the entrance. From that angle, the street grid would be out of place with the railroad and the buildings would look much different. [1] https://www.google.com/maps/@34.1898286,-118.3382049,3a,75y,66.03h,81.25t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1snOVqUavBWiO7FQjUoFiang!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@34.1898286,-118.3382049,3a,75y,... [2] https://www.udeuschle.de/panoramas/panqueryfull.aspx?mode=newstandard&data=lon%3A-118.33589%24%24%24lat%3A34.18908%24%24%24alt%3Aauto%24%24%24altcam%3A10%24%24%24hialt%3Afalse%24%24%24resolution%3A20%24%24%24azimut%3A55.7%24%24%24sweep%3A60%24%24%24leftbound%3A25.7%24%24%24rightbound%3A85.7%24%24%24split%3A60%24%24%24splitnr%3A1%24%24%24tilt%3A3.95833333333333%24%24%24tiltsplit%3Afalse%24%24%24elexagg%3A1.2%24%24%24range%3A300%24%24%24colorcoding%3Afalse%24%24%24colorcodinglimit%3A130%24%24%24title%3ABurbank%20Ansel%20Adams%20photo%24%24%24description%3A%24%24%24email%3A%24%24%24language%3Aen%24%24%24screenwidth%3A1366%24%24%24screenheight%3A768 https://www.udeuschle.de/panoramas/panqueryfull.aspx?mode=ne... [3] search for '1939 aerial view looking south at Lockheed' at http://members.tripod.com/airfields_freeman/CA/Airfields_CA_SanFernan.htm#lockheedb1 http://members.tripod.com/airfields_freeman/CA/Airfields_CA_... [4] https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*sY_ju9NCmwSEySh5Z-bESQ.jpeg https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*sY_ju9NCmwSEySh5Z... [5] http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2014/03/milepost-markers.html http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2014/03/milepost-markers.h... [6] http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2014/03/speed-signs.html http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2014/03/speed-signs.html
- narrator 8y agoAnyone read "Factotum" by Bukowski? While looking at these, I can't help but think about Henry Chinaski wandering from job to job in 1940s L.A and all the characters he mixes with while doing so.
- nradov 8y agoBased on inflation calculations, $0.10 in 1943 would be equivalent to $1.45 today. You can still buy a hot dog with soda at Costco for $1.50 (although it may be a loss leader).
- danieltillett 8y agoI think this says more about how inaccurate inflation has been measured.
- nradov 8y agoHow is it inaccurate?
- nkurz 8y agoThe argument is that since a sidewalk hotdog currently costs more than $1.45, we should have considerable doubt that the inflation rate was calculated correctly. If the average sidewalk price then is equivalent to the lowest possible price now, it seems fair to say that the actual rate of inflation was higher than the official figure. The problem is deciding if a "sidewalk hotdog" then is really comparable to a "sidewalk hotdog" now, given all the other changes in consumption habits and opportunities.
- refurb 8y agoCPI-U is an average rate of inflation across a basket of products. It's possible that the price of some products has gone up higher than CPI-U and that other products haven't gone up as high.
- WalterBright 8y agoMy father (right out of high school) worked at Lockheed during the time. I looked for his face in the pictures. He volunteered after Pearl Harbor. The picture of "comic books" at the newsstand weren't comic books, they were pulp fiction. Pulp fiction pretty much died with the advent of TV. Pulps from those days can fetch hundreds of dollars.
- WalterBright 8y agoIt's interesting that men of the day wore loose fitting pants. Today, when period pictures are made of that time, the actors wear closely fitted pants.
- cco 8y agoAdmittedly the only film that comes to my mind imediately is LA Confidential, but that film stars loose fitting pants. Which period films with tight fitting pants are you thinking of?
- WalterBright 8y agoOffhand "Black Sheep Squadron" comes to mind.
- ggm 8y agoThe zoot suit riots were during the war, right? Man... Those pants were pegged! Very nearly hammerpants.
- TwoBit 8y agoWell, what's 10 cents in today's hot dog buying dollars?
- loser777 8y ago$0.10 is supposedly $1.89 today according to an inflation calculator (1939) -> (2018). $0.05 (for a soda) using the same site is $0.91. Not sure how the scaling works. My local Costco still serves $1.50 hot dogs + drink, so I'd only need to eat about 93 hot dogs and drink 93 sodas a year to offset the cost of a membership ;) and break even on 1939 hot dog dollars.
- cortesoft 8y agoYou don't need a membership to eat at the food courts.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- tomnipotent 8y agoCostco sells hot dog/soda combo at a loss (and I love them for that, even though I'm not a customer): https://thetakeout.com/costco-loses-money-every-time-it-sells-a-1-50-hot-dog-1825177950 https://thetakeout.com/costco-loses-money-every-time-it-sell...
- gymshoes 8y agoThere's a video by NPR explaining how coke price was same for a long time: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/03/28/597302023/the-price-of-coke-stayed-the-same-for-70-years-why https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/03/28/597302023/the-...
- lexxed 8y agoit's funny how people have almost the same thoughts and feelings, just in different space and time.
- ggm 8y agoThe accommodation crisis close to big factories was awful but remember people who had been in the depression were living in jungle camps made out of cardboard by freight lines. These caravan trailers were a step up for e.g. former migrant field labour. Richard Rhodes talks about workers in the wider Manhatten district nuclear factory system eg at oak Ridge having no limit to meat in their ration to attract workers to barracks style entertainment free zone: bars with windows which swing up and out for rapid teargassing by police due to barfights.