The United States in color from 1939-1943

For most people I'd say, the image that sums up the Great Depression in the US is Dorothea Lange's Migrant Mother. As iconic as the image of 32-year-old Florence Owens Thompson is, that it's a black and white photograph takes it out of my ability to relate to her as a real human being. She's an archetype, she is The Depression and the struggle of a migrant worker's life is etched deeply into her careworn face. Even so, I have a hard time relating to her as a human being. I suppose I am a product of my generation, but black and white photography, despite its artistic appeal, makes its subjects seem unreal.

I'm admitting this as an ardent student of history. Studying the past is the best way to understand where you are now so far as I'm concerned and it's incredibly important to remember that history doesn't march in a straight line. It's a tapestry of interconnected threads and each thread depends on every other thread to make up the whole. It's too easy to cast the subjects of portraits and black and white photos in either/ or terms. Historical figures, like all human beings, were complicated and conflicted and they got through their lives the best way they could. The same as anybody. Life was not simpler, less violent, more directed, safer, cleaner or more wise in the past. The people who lived before us decried the state of things, clung to what ever they could, they loved, felt loss, smiled and laughed. They were us and I force myself to remember that any time I read something historical.

I've been obsessing for the last couple of years about US history in the years that lead up to World War II. Then, as now, the economy was spinning out of control and nobody seemed to know what was going on. I grew up listening to my parents' and grandmothers' stories about life during the Great Depression and it always thrilled me to hear about a time when butter was an expensive treat and everybody had a single pair of shoes. But parents and grandparents tend to tell the kids int heir lives the myths of their lives. It's a parental thing to do, to use one's life experiences for instructing a younger generation. It's been a real boon to flesh out those stories of expensive butter.

The world we live in today was built by the folks who survived the Depression and World War II, for better and for worse. Through a combination of hard work, self-reliance and a whole lot of government help, they left us a world where things like kitchen design matter.

Yesterday a great friend of this blog, Madame Sunday, popped a link from the Denver Post up onto Twitter. And the link contained 75 color photographs of life around the US between the years of  1939-43. I hate to admit it, but the subjects are easier to see as human beings because they're photographed in color. I spent hours yesterday pouring over these images and here are ten that really stood out to me.

Barker at the grounds at the state fair. Rutland, Vermont, September 1941. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

Jack Whinery, homesteader, and his family. Pie Town, New Mexico, October 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

Distributing surplus commodities. St. Johns, Arizona, October 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

Young African American boy. Cincinnati, Ohio, 1942 or 1943. Photo by John Vachon. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

Bayou Bourbeau plantation, a Farm Security Administration cooperative. Vicinity of Natchitoches, Louisiana, August 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Marion Post Wolcott. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

African American migratory workers by a "juke joint." Belle Glade, Florida, February 1941. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Marion Post Wolcott. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

Women workers employed as wipers in the roundhouse having lunch in their rest room, Chicago and Northwest Railway Company. Clinton, Iowa, April 1943. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

Rural school children. San Augustine County, Texas, April 1943. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by John Vachon. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

Mike Evans, a welder, at the rip tracks at Proviso yard of the Chicago and Northwest Railway Company. Chicago, Illinois, April 1943. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

School children singing. Pie Town, New Mexico, October 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

The rest of these photos are on the Denver Post's website. Spend some time with them. As the economy flounders and as the US heads into another election season, it's important to remember what we have in common instead of concentrating so stridently on the things that set us apart.

Early autumn re-runs: How do I decorate my Tuscany dining room

This post ran originally on 27 February 2009. I used to be a lot more blunt in my reader question posts then I am these days but I think if I were asked this same question tomorrow I'd respond the same way.

Help! I am in the process of gutting my first floor and I'm going to get a Tuscany dining room. I want to decorate the room with bunches of dried roses but I'm worried that they're not right for a Tuscany theme.

Oh man, there is so much wrong here I don't know where to start. Before you spend a dime, stop what you're doing. Stop and then take $1500 out of your budget and fly to Florence for a couple of days. Well, maybe $2000. Whatever it costs, it will have a value that transcends its price. You see, while you're there you'll gaze at what the real Tuscany looks like and hopefully you'll forget all about this dining room you have in mind. Oh, and as a point of order, Tuscany is a noun and Tuscan is an adjective. What you have in mind is a Tuscan dining room, not a Tuscany dining room. If I have anything to say about it you won't have either, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

This Tuscan thing that you see in your mind is an entirely American invention. It's not even an homage, it's a cartoon. Here's what a dining room in the real Tuscany looks like. 

Note the lack of bunches of dried roses. There are no fake sunflowers or clots of plastic grapes either. There aren't any framed posters with nonsensical Italian phrases hanging on the wall, nor is there any faux painted brick. It's a basic, small table jammed into the space not already taken up by a tiny kitchen. It's neat as a pin, it's simple and it's orderly. But real Tuscan style isn't about decor or themed dining rooms. It's about views like this.

Or views like this.

Views like that beget a worldview that's entirely Tuscan and how things look over there are a product of that worldview. The real Tuscany is about making the best use of a small space. The real Tuscany is about embracing life, it's about authenticity, it's about quality over quantity in everything. There's no theme here, there's no attempt to recreate a magazine spread or a dream house from some Developer's unimaginative mind. The truth of the matter is that unless you can see the Arno river pass under your dining room window, no amount of clutter will give you a "Tuscany dining room."

Man! That room up there burns my eyes. Please don't do something like that in your home. Sorry to be so brutal but what you're asking is for some kind of permission to turn your home into a miniature Las Vegas and that's something I refuse to go along with.

Listen, your dining room and indeed your whole home should tell your story, not somebody else's. The things you decorate with should be your things and if you're going to buy a dining table, buy one that's classic enough and made well enough that you can pass it on to your kids. Then in 50 years when it's in your daughter's home that same table will tell your story as it passes into her story. I suspect that's the feeling you're after. A feeling of permanence and a feeling of knowing you belong somewhere. That sort of thing isn't a theme, it's a way of life.

So if you want to bring some Tuscan sensibilities to your dining room, by all means do so. But study the real place, not The Venetian or the Bellagio. While you're enjoying the quick jaunt over to Florence I so strongly recommend, have your photo taken with the Duomo in the background then get it blown up and framed. Hang it in your dining room. I don't think it's possible to get more Tuscan than Florence, and it'll be yours. Authentically.

If you like bunches of dried roses, go for it. Just be sure that you like them and that you're not just adding them to advance some kind of ill-advised theme. So instead of asking me if they're appropriate, the person to ask is you. What do bunches of dried roses say about you? If you're happy with the answer than hang them by the bushel. If you're not happy with the answer then don't. If you're not sure then don't do anything. It's pretty simple really.

Early autumn re-runs: How to fold a fitted sheet

This post appeared originally on 19 January 2009. If having standards is a crime then I'm guilty.


I have occasional occasion to house and dog sit for an unnamed friend. This unnamed friend is someone I love like a brother and my life would be far less rich than it is without him in it. That said, he's not the most gifted housekeeper I've ever met and it's not an unusual thing for me to spit shine his house while he's out of town. I'm not the uptight, retentive person this is sounding like, really. But there are certain standards that until I met this unnamed friend, I assumed every one learned to maintain from childhood on.

As I said before, I'm not uptight and retentive, but there are limits to how much slovenliness I'll chalk up to a quirky personality even when I love the quirky personality like a brother. Well, the last time I was over there I opened his hall closet and saw before me a collection of wadded up sheets and pillow cases that make me shake my head even now. Someone claims no one ever told him how to fold a fitted sheet and so he just wads them into a ball and shoves them into a linen closet until he needs one. Appalling. Appalling! Am I the only one out there who had a grandmother around to impart these kinds of life skills? I mean, what kind of an adult can't fold a fitted sheet?

Without asking for a show of hands I know that there are far more unable-to-fold-a-fitted-sheet people out there than I want to know about. So in the spirit of public mindedness, I found a public service video that explains in simple, approachable terms, how to fold a fitted sheet. The video even stars a middle-aged man who's wearing a wedding ring, so that way no one's masculinity need be bruised in learning this vital life skill. So ladies and gentlemen, I now give you How To Fold a Fitted Sheet. Lights down please.

Early autumn re-runs: Whither happiness?

This post appeared originally on 29 October 2008 and it's about an article in The Atlantic I'd read on a flight home the day before. Two years later, I think about the article's points regularly. Now that's some kind of writing. I checked and the link still works.


On a related topic, and before I dive back into the world of residential design, there's a great article in this month's Atlantic magazine. Paul Bloom wrote a thought-provoking piece on the intersection of Philosophy and Psychology. I read it on my flight home to Florida the other day and it's been lodged in my fore brain ever since. Read his work here.

But what’s more exciting, I think, is the emergence of a different perspective on happiness itself. We used to think that the hard part of the question “How can I be happy?” had to do with nailing down the definition of happy. But it may have more to do with the definition of I. Many researchers now believe, to varying degrees, that each of us is a community of competing selves, with the happiness of one often causing the misery of another. This theory might explain certain puzzles of everyday life, such as why addictions and compulsions are so hard to shake off, and why we insist on spending so much of our lives in worlds —like TV shows and novels and virtual-reality experiences—that don’t actually exist.

The shape of induction cook tops to come

I love induction cook tops. I say it all the time. They're smarter, faster and more efficient than any other cooking technology out there. Induction may be new in the US, but it is here to stay. I keep up with new developments in the induction world and yesterday I stumbled upon this photo.

Big whoop, right? Well it is a big whoop because it's the first induction cook top on the market that dispenses with circular coils. here it is up close.

That's the 93cm Continuum Induction Hob from De Detreich, and the the world's first flexibly zoned induction cook top. Right now, it's only available in the UK but this is how they will all look and operate within the next two years, mark my words. By flexibly zoned I mean that the surface interacts with whatever pot or pan gets placed on it, regardless of the pot's size. You use the same controls for a Dutch over as you would a small saucepan and the cook top "knows" how big the metal surface is that's sitting on it and adjusts itself accordingly.

Let me explain a little bit.

Here's a particularly good induction cook top from GE Monogram. See the circles? It has round electromagnets underneath those circles. They're round because that's what people expect a burner to look like.

Electric burners are also round and they're round because gas burners are round.

Gas burners are round partially due to the way that gas functions, but that was lead by the woodstoves that proceeded the widespread adoption of gas. Since pots have been round ever since the dawn of pottery, it made sense to have round burners. However, not all pots and pans are round.

This is an All-Clad roasting pan. I like to make gravy right in the roasting pan after I remove a bird when I'm making a big meal.

Similarly, if I'm trying to boil sweet potatoes, boil regular potatoes, steam broccoli, reduce a sauce and make gravy at the same time, I run out of burners. With a zoned cook top, I'm not limited to the number of available burners. I'm only limited by the number of pots I can fit on the cook top.

It's genius. It's genius and it's definitely the shape of things to come.