Looking at a slice of American life in 1940


One of my favorite things is "the slice of life", which I enjoy looking at in old photos, as well as IRL (In Real Life). These are just the ordinary, comforting, very human things that people do every day, and they're so different from the artificial stuff that I see in movies, or on Instagram, that it fascinates me.

Today I'm looking at a photo that I found on the Duke University site. The reason the photo was taken, and the reason that Duke scanned it and stores it, has to do with the billboard. But even though it's the most important thing to this photo in many ways, it's the least important to me. I want to look at the slice of life.

It's 1940, and we're at Broad and Livingston, Trenton, New Jersey looking north towards Assunpink. This is the United States of America a year before it entered World War II. And there more I look at this photo, the more I'm enjoying the innocence, and have a sense of a calm before the storm. But let's not worry about that, let's just go take a look at the slice of life.


I have to admit that the first things that catch my eye are the cars, especially that moving van on the left. Whenever I see a moving van, I know that someone's life is changing, either they're moving to the place, or moving away from it. And of course all of the cars in the photo would be collector's items today, but they were just ordinary cars then, the way that cars are nowadays. I'm wonder who A.E. Sohl was (written on the side of the van). By the way, there's the billboard, which is pointing to George's Clothing Shop. By the time I got into advertising and graphic design, in the '80s, they weren't doing that anymore. I don't know if it became illegal, but billboards were not used simply as big signs for a particular business. They could do it in 1940.


Speaking of signs, I wonder what the one there the at J.B. Van Sciver Co. represents? Someone working on a sawhorse? What do you see? Update: February 20th: J.B. Van Sciver Co. was a large furniture producer and retailer out of Camden, New Jersey. Research by the good Captain - see comment below!


But let's look at the people. They're blurry because of the long-exposure camera that the photographer used in 1940. Long exposures captures a lot of wonderful detail, but if anything moves, it blurs. There was a time, way back at the beginning of the use of photography, that made people believe that it was proof of ghost. Nah, just blurry movement.

Looks like the kid on the bicycle would be too young to go into military service, but the lady crossing the street with the little one probably had a husband who would be going overseas. Sorry, I wasn't going to think about that, but it's hard not to. And it looks like that elderly lady could use some heel repair, and is on her way to the right place!


The tiny storefronts with the angled entrances remind me of the places where my grandma used to shop in her small town of Bovey, Minnesota. I now only see that style of entrance in old movies. Those floating heads with the hats on them would have freaked me out when I was a kid! And look, Simon Shankman was established in 1906, which would be the same as seeing a business nowadays proudly saying that it has been in business since the 1980s.


Let's take one more look at the buildings. I like the hand-painted sign for ONeills Shoe Repairing. We fix em while you wait. Here 40 years. That building back there with the spire is still there, by the way.

Thank you for looking at a slice of American life in 1940 with me!
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Comments

  1. Cpt. CrankyFebruary 19, 2021 at 9:22 PM

    J.B. Van Sciver Co. was a large furniture producer and retailer out of Camden, NJ. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.B._Van_Sciver_Co.

    ReplyDelete

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