PUBLIC SCHOOL

Capturing America

The Denver Post‘s blog recently posted some beautiful Depression-Era photos that belong to the Library of Congress.

The collection instantly renewed our excitement about working with Davis Ayer to design and publish a book focusing on the hundreds of color slides he’s collected that were taken between the 1940s and 1960s. A few of the slides can be previewed at his Kodrachome Restoration Project Flickr set.

A few more of our favorites after the jump, but do yourself a favor and check out the entire gallery on the Denver Post Blog.

Leah Giberson

Leah Giberson‘s work is the kind of stuff that really gets my attention when I’m doing my late night internet perusal. Her paintings are reinterpretations of photographs she has taken. She seems strips away all of the extraneous details from the photo and leaves you with this beautiful painted Americana. I’m in love with it and wish I could live in the world she has created. Great work Leah. Found via the Jealous Curator.

School House Rock – Fireworks

There’s gonna be fireworks on the 4th of July, that’s for sure. What’s not for sure is whether or not you’ve seen this School House Rock clip teaching you why we’ve got fireworks on the 4th. Entertain and educate yourselves children.

Historical 4th of July

While I was digging around on the Library of Congress’ website, I did a search for 4th of July images. The product of that search is hundres of images of Americans celebrating the 4th of July way back in the day, 17 of which I plucked for your enjoyment. Of course, you’ll find plenty of images of parades and people hanging around outside. Click on the images to see them larger.

WPA Posters

The WPA undoubtedly has played an important part in American history for many reasons, though their posters continue to be some of my favorite from that era. I recently found the Library of Congress’ collection of scanned WPA posters. There are over 900 that I have spent the better part of an hour flipping through. I’ve gathered my favorites here.

The Miniature World Of Michael Paul Smith

What do you do when you can’t go back in time and take pictures of life as it was? Build scale models and photograph those. Michael Paul Smith has a rather diverse history of professions that has given him the ability to build some extremely detailed miniature sets of American life as it was mid-20th century. His images seem like a scene straight out of A Christmas Story. More after the jump.

The Book Of Sleep

Though its not nearly as famous or nearly as macabre as the Book of The Dead, The Book of Sleep is an interesting part of a much larger project by Square America to collect images from the first 3/4 of the 20th century in to one online depository. The source of the images is the endless resale shops and ebay sellers they find online. The title of this collection in particular spells out what you’ll obviously find in it. Though its not the greatest looking website around, you’d be missing the point to knock the archive on that note alone. The images are great, with the sheer number present being a feat alone. More after the jump.

Up There

I have been fascinated with hand painted signs for a while and on a road-trip to Amarillo with Casey last year started photographing them as a personal project. I was extremely excited to find the above documentary about sign painting on Jay Schaul’s blog this afternoon so decided to share it with all of you. You can find more information about the film here. Enjoy.