Photo Essays, Spot News and Stock Photography

Archive for ‘April, 2023’

U. S. February 11, 1938

ELECTRIFICATION

To be honest when we first saw this image we liked the composition but had a difficult time in defining the story. What was this photo trying to say? The collapsed buildings could have been caused by a natural disaster. Why then would the fence posts still be standing untouched? Were to buildings demolished by design to make room for improved structures? A nice, rural photo with an interesting composition but what else? Does not look particularly like a farm. And then we realized that the story here is about the utility poles bringing electrification to rural America. Probably a WPA project as the timeline is correct. “Electrification“; U. S. (February 11, 1938). It was after seeing a photo and reading a report in Newsday (3/33/23) that convinced us of the story. See: “PSEG to take 5 ‘monster’ poles down”.