1977 - Summer of the Son of Sam

In The Summer of the Son of Sam Jeffrey Dean Foster remembers events from the long summer of 1977: New York City's historic blackout, the deaths of Elvis Presley and Lynyrd Skynyrd, and a radio telescope reception from deep space. The song also evokes some of the turmoil of the time: political kidnappings, murders, airplane hijackings, and the deaths of Andreas Baader and other members of the Red Army Faction; expulsion of the Gang of Four from the Chinese Communist Party; and conflicts between Anita Bryant and gay activists. It was a time of NASA launches and of wild enthusiasm for the first of the Star Wars films. We saw then the beginning of the disco fad. Early in the year the Episcopal Church ordained its first woman priest and President Carter pardoned draft evaders of the Vietnam War.

It was also the summer in which the "Son of Sam" killer, David Berkowitz was captured. Berkowitz claimed to be a Satanist, pursued by devils, including demon sent by a neighbor of his, Sam Carr.

Here are the lyrics to Foster's song followed by a Youtube performance and a brief chronology from wikipedia:

I was still in school, in the summer of the son of sam
The nights were cool, and nothin’ could have brought us down
The nights were long and the band played on
One long song, just to keep the power on.

All the light that shines on you is from a dying star
The star’s been dead a billion years
Now it’s shining off your car
The city was dark, in the summer of the son of sam
The devil left his mark
And the freebird hit the ground
All the light that shines on you is from a dying star
The stars been dead a billion years
And now it’s shining off your car

Chorus
To light your way, I feel my troubles slipping away
I feel my troubles, I feel your troubles slippin away x2
All the light that shines on you is from a dying star
The stars been dead a billion years
And now it’s shining off your car
now it’s shining off your car
now it’s shining off your car
To light your way, I feel my troubles slipping away
slipping away.

---

Some events of the long summer of 1977 (May - Oct):

• May 25 – Star Wars opens in cinemas and subsequently becomes the then-highest grossing film of all time.
• June 26 – Elvis Presley performs his last-ever concert in Indianapolis, Indiana's Market Square Arena.
• June 26 – Some 200,000 protesters march through the streets of San Francisco, protesting Anita Bryant's anti-gay remarks and the murder of Robert Hillsborough.
• Keep the power on: July 13 – The New York City blackout of 1977 lasts for 25 hours, resulting in looting and other disorder.
• July 19 to July 20 – Flooding in Johnstown, PA, caused by massive rainfall, kills over 75 people and causes billions in damage.
• July 22Ellis Macon was born. – The purged Chinese Communist leader Deng Xiaoping is restored to power 9 months after the "Gang of Four" was expelled from power in a coup d'état.
• July 24 – Led Zeppelin plays their last U.S. concert in Oakland, CA at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. A brawl erupts between Led Zeppelin's crew and promoter Bill Graham's staff, resulting in criminal assault charges for several of Led Zeppelin's entourage including drummer John Bonham.
• July 30 – Left-wing German terrorists Susanne Albrecht[2], Brigitte Mohnhaupt[3] and a third person assassinate Jürgen Ponto[4], chairman of the Dresdner Bank in Oberursel, West Germany.
• son of sam/The devil left his mark: August 10 – David Berkowitz is captured in Yonkers, New York, after over a year of murders in New York City as the Son Of Sam.
• August 12 – The NASA Space Shuttle, named Enterprise, makes its first test free-flight from the back of a Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA).
• light from a dying star: August 15 – The Big Ear, a radio telescope operated by Ohio State University as part of the SETI project, receives a radio signal from deep space; the event is named the "WOW!" signal for a notation made by a volunteer on the project.
• dying star: August 16 - Elvis Presley is found dead at his home Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee.
• August 20 – Voyager program: The United States launches the Voyager 2 spacecraft.
• October 14 – Anita Bryant is famously pied by four gay rights activists during a press conference in Des Moines, Iowa. This event resulted in her political fallout from anti-gay activism.
• October 18 – German Autumn: Red Army Faction members Andreas Baader, Jan-Carl Raspe and Gudrun Ensslin commit suicide in Stammheim prison; Irmgard Möller fails (their supporters still claim they were murdered). They are buried October 27.
• freebird hit the ground: October 20 - A plane carrying Lynyrd Skynyrd crashes in Mississippi, killing songwriter & vocalist Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines and background vocalist Cassie Gaines.

{David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam; source: greatnewnation.com}

{The Gang of Four; source: depaul.edu}

{Blackout in New York City; source: Gothamist}

{Johnstown Flood of 1977; source: johnstown-redevelopment.org}

{The Wow! source radio emission entered the receiver of the Big Ear radio telescope; source: seti.net}

{Anita Bryant pied; source: wikipedia}

{Andreas Baader; source: dhm.de}

{Lynyrd Skynyrd; source: swampland.com}

---

Addendum:

There's a very interesting interview six-part Youtube conversation between David Berkowitz and Daniel Lefkowitz who was a teenage acquaintance. It took place on January 12th of this year. Here's the first part.



Compare this conversation to the 1977 coverage of the case from WCBS-AM radio in New York: From the Archive: Son of Sam.

In both, Berkowitz seems to be a normal decent human being and he explains that he was not himself when killing but rather was taken over by commands given him by his neighbor Sam Carr via his dog.

Summer of Iran

Alan Taylor's photo sets on boston.com are always good, sometimes staggeringly so. His two collections on the disputed election in Iran are magnificent.

• Iran's Disputed Election
• Iran's continued election turmoil

Impossible to pick one as best; so this is a random sample:



While scrolling down these evocative images, I listened to Jeffrey Dean Foster's Summer of the Son of Sam on Youtube.


Summer of the Son of Sam by Jeffrey Dean Foster at The Garage, Winston Salem, NC, May 15, 2009

Lyrics from his web site:

The Summer of the Son of Sam

I was still in school, in the summer of the son of sam
The nights were cool, and nothin’ could have brought us down
The nights were long and the band played on
One long song, just to keep the power on.

All the light that shines on you is from a dying star
The star’s been dead a billion years
Now it’s shining off your car
The city was dark, in the summer of the son of sam
The devil left his mark
And the freebird hit the ground
All the light that shines on you is from a dying star
The stars been dead a billion years
And now it’s shining off your car

Chorus
To light your way, I feel my troubles slipping away
I feel my troubles, I feel your troubles slippin away x2
All the light that shines on you is from a dying star
The stars been dead a billion years
And now it’s shining off your car
now it’s shining off your car
now it’s shining off your car
To light your way, I feel my troubles slipping away
slipping away.

Leopold Bloom and Old Tom Morris

Famously, today is Bloomsday. I've devoured Ulysses three times, helped along by cribs and guides (Gilbert's is still the best).

{First edition; source: spencer.lib.ku.edu}

{The man; source iicnewyork.esteri.it}

Today is also the birthdate of Old Tom Morris. I recently came across his name in a New Yorker article. The mag I picked up in the giveaway box at the Ellsworth Public Library; the reading I did flying back home from Maine after a really excellent family week in the Blue Hill area. The article appears in the 'Far-Flung Correspondents' section of the April 20 issue; it's The Ghost Course, by David Owen. I recommend to you the article, the library, and the week on the down-east coast of ME.

You can read about Morris in wikipedia and a site called The Life of Tom Morris, along with quite a few other golf-history web pages.

{Old Tom Morris; source: wikipedia}

{Old and Young Tom Morris; source: wikipedia}

{Tom Morris Senior, photographed in the 1890s; source: electricscotland.com}

{Home Hole (St Andrews) in the 'fifties; source: electricscotland.com}

{St. Andrews, Tom driving off "Fore"; source: electricscotland.com}

{Painting by Tom Pinch; source: www.tompinch.com}

Emerson's last lectures in London

Nearing the end of his European travels, Emerson wrote his wife Lydian on this date:

June 16.        

My last lecture is to-morrow, and is far from ready. Then do not expect me to leave England for a fortnight yet, for I must make amends for my aristocratic lecturing in Edwards Street, at prices which exclude all my public, by reading three of my old chapters in Exeter Hall to a city association. Our little company at Marylebone has grown larger on each day, and is truly a dignified company, in which several notable men and women are patiently found. . . . Carlyle takes a lively interest in our lectures, especially in the third of the course [on the "Tendencies and Duties of Men of Thought"], and he is a very observed auditor, 't is very plain. The Duchess of Sutherland, a magnificent lady, comes, and Lady Ashburton, and Lord Lovelace, who is the husband of "Ada, sole daughter of my house and heart," and Mrs. Jameson, and Spence (of Kirby and Spence), and Barry Cornwall, and Lyell, and a great many more curiosities; but none better than Jane Carlyle and Mrs. Bancroft, who honestly come. Love to the little saints of the nursery. . . .

---

{Anne Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, Duchess of Sutherland; source: wikipedia}

{Lady Harriet Baring, later Lady Ashburton; source: malcolmingram.com. See also: HARRIET, LADY ASHBURTON NYT}

Earl of Lovelace

{Ada Lovelace; source: geneall.net}

"Ada, sole daughter of my house and heart," - The quote comes from Byron's Childe Harold's pilgrimage.

{Jane Welsh Carlyle; source: malcomingram.com}

Jane Carlyle was surely honest at an attentive listener at Emerson's lectures but she would write: "I could never get up the least interest or affection for Emerson; for all so amiable as he is." (JWC TO JOSEPH NEUBERG ; 22 July 1848)

Some sources:

A memoir of Ralph Waldo Emerson by James Elliot Cabot (Houghton Mifflin and company, 1888(

A Memoir Of Ralph Waldo Emerson, by James Elliot Cabot (Cambridge, 1887)

The Life of Ralph Waldo Emerson, by Ralph L. Rusk (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1949)

Thomas Carlyle; the Collected Letters, Volume 23, edited by Ian M. Campbell et al (Duke University Press , 2009)

Pachelbel and his Canon

Years ago a local radio station took a fancy to Pachelbel's Canon. I heard it so often, and became so tired of it, that I sought music elsewhere. This past weekend I heard piece with pleasure, but that was because it was played at a wonderful wedding ceremony on a gloriously fine day in a fine old New England church. Now, this morning and with pretty much equal pleasure, I find these two Youtube videos on a soup.io blog called hair in my soup.

First, the complete Canon, as interpreted by the Umbilical Brothers


Second, Pachelbel Rant

guilt-inducing tree-hugger excesses?

I have a friend who likes to keep me informed about the latest outrage or ironic event that's circulating on teh internets. The other day she sent me an opinion piece from a local freepaper, The Examiner. Here's the lede and first paras:

Paper, plastic or bacteria for your groceries?

By: Katy Grimes, OpEd Contributor
- | 6/9/09 5:18 AM
Since America seems to be following the path to socialism, our way wouldn’t be complete without another contradictory law from the emotional and irrational left.

For many years paper grocery bags were used with regularity and preferred by consumers and shopkeepers. Trees are a renewable resource, so there was no guilt assigned to paper bag use. Most people have reused paper bags over the years for many purposes; trash and recyclables, book covers, sturdy wrapping for mailing packages, back-of-the-closet-storage for out-of-season shoes, garden cuttings, and even for fruit and vegetable ripening.

When the guilt-inducing tree-huggers invaded the political scene, paper products fell out of political favor and the use of plastic bags was ushered in. In the ensuing years, environmentalists have screamed loudly (again) now that plastic bags are killing aquatic life and filling landfills.

So the eco-cool people flooded farmers markets and grocery stores using the new, chic, cheap, reusable, enviro-friendly shopping bags, made in Asia and transported all the way to the US of cloth, nylon or synthetic fiber.

But wait! The eco-friendly bags may not be so human-hygiene friendly. There are disturbing reports coming out of Canada that the eco-friendly shopping bags are Petri dishes of disgusting bacteria. . . .

A news search turns up some articles taken from the same press release that caught this author's eye. None calls attention to the fact that the study was carried out on behalf of the plastics industry.

A university blog post by a guy called Ben Chapman gives some counterbalancing context. Here's the link and some extracts:

Are reusable bags really a food safety concern?
Posted on May 21, 2009 by Ben Chapman

The Canadian Plastic Industry Association (likely feeling reduced sales due to the popularity of reusable cloth bags) says that reusable bags are a public health risk. In a press release yesterday the plastic dudes touted the results of a bag swabbing study conducted earlier this year. Cited as the first study of its kind in North America, the plastics industry swabbed a whopping 25 bags, with 4 controls looking for anything they could find.

Swab-testing of a scientifically-meaningful sample of both single-use and reusable grocery bags found unacceptably high levels of bacterial, yeast, mold and coliform counts in the reusable bags. The swab testing was conducted March 7-April 10th by two independent laboratories. The study found that 64% of the reusable bags were contaminated with some level of bacteria and close to 30% had elevated bacterial counts higher than the 500 CFU/mL considered safe for drinking water.

Um, yeah except that coliform isn't an indicator of really anything in a shopping bag. It's a great indicator of water quality, but not great for food (coliforms are all over the place, including on produce). And mean relatively nothing.

The lack of real data is probably why it was reported in CFU/ml (a water measurement -- pretty hard to tell what a ml of a shopping bag represents). The most telling data was that no generic E. coli or Salmonella was found. . . .

Ben says it's best to wash reusable bags every now and then and always wrap meat carefully so it can't come into contact with the bag's fabric.

You can do a search of .gov and .edu sites for other discussions of the plastics industry's findings. My search terms were "contaminated reusable shopping bags." You could also include the phrase "Canadian Plastic Industry Association."

Since I fondly recall the Wayward Press pieces that A. J. Liebling, I'm breaking a rule I've imposed on myself and giving this post a new label. Katy Grimes's piece, is, of course, opinion, but I'd like to be able to expect that even opinion pieces have some modicum of investigation underlying them.

work that may be spoiled by rapid casting

On this date Emerson wrote his wife Lydian a letter about his return from Paris to London:

London, June 8, 1848.        

I came from Paris last Saturday hither, after spending twenty-five days there, and seeing little of the inside of the houses. I had one very pleasant hour with Madame d'Agout. . . . An artist of the name of Lehmann offered me also good introductions, and I was to see Quinet, Lamennais, and others, but I turned my back and came to London. Still, Paris is much the more attractive to me of the two; in great part, no doubt, because it yields itself up entirely to serve us. I wholly forget what I have already written you concerning Paris, and must not venture on repeating my opinions, which are stereo-typed as usual, and will surely come in the same words. Besides, I have no right to be writing you at all, dear wife, as I have been writing all day, have read my second lecture to-day, and must write all to-morrow on my third for Saturday. We have a very moderate audience, and I was right, of course, in not wishing to undertake it; for I spoil my work by giving it this too rapid casting. . . . It is a regret to me to lose this summer; for in London all days and all seasons are alike, and I have not realized one natural day. . . . Carlyle talks of editing a newspaper, he has so much to say about the evil times. You have probably already seen his articles. I send you two of them in the Spectator. ... It grieves me that I cannot write to the children: to Edie for her printed letter, which is a treasure; to Ellen, who must be my own secretary directly. I cannot hear that the railroad bridge is built, and you would not have me come home till I can go clean from Boston to Concord? Will this idle scrawling tell you the sad secret that I cannot with heavy head make the smallest way in my inevitable morrow's work?

---

Madame d'Agoult admired and wrote favorable appraisals of Emerson's writings in the early 1840s. Of her, one of Emerson's biographers wrote:

The clever Comtesse d'Agoult was thus, as it turned out, the only Emersonian with whom Emerson had any satisfactory meeting in Paris. He recorded with restrained enthusiasm his "one very pleasant hour" with her. She recorded her meeting with "the moralist" with no more emotion but felt at least enough of her earlier admiration to have a crayon sketch made of him by Charles Lehrnann, who rediscovered the Indian type in Emerson's head.

Henri Lehmann (1814–1882) was a French historical and portrait painter, born in Kiel, Schleswig. He was a pupil of his father, Leo Lehmann, and of Ingres in Paris, where he opened a studio in 1847. (wikipedia)

Edgar Quinet (February 17, 1803–March 27, 1875) was a French historian and intellectual. (wikipedia)

{Lemannais; source: wikipedia}

Hugues Felicité Robert de Lamennais also known as Frédéric de La Mennais (June 19, 1782 - February 27, 1854), was a French priest, and philosophical and political writer. (wikipedia)

{Edith and Ellen Emerson; source: historyvortex.org}

Boston and Lowell Railroad

---

Some sources:

A memoir of Ralph Waldo Emerson, by James Elliot Cabot (Cambridge, Printed at the Riverside Press, 1887)

A Memoir Of Ralph Waldo Emerson, by James Elliot Cabot (Cambridge, 1887)

The Life of Ralph Waldo Emerson, by Ralph L. Rusk (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1949)

History of the railroads and canals of the United States by Henry Varnum Poor (J.H. Schultz & co., 1860)

gems of fossil wine

On or about 8 June 1848 Emerson wrote this in his Journals:

June -.        

I write "Mind and Manners in the Nineteenth Century,"¹ and my rede is to make the student independent of the century, to show him that his class offer one immutable front in all times and countries, cannot hear the drums of Paris, cannot read the London journals; they are the Wandering Jew or the Eternal Angel that survives all, and stands on the same fraternal relation to all. The world is always childish, and with each gewgaw of a revolution or new constitution that it finds, thinks it shall never cry any more: but it is always becoming evident that the permanent good is for the soul only, and cannot be retained in any society or system. This is like naphtha which must be kept in a close vessel.

When I get into our first-class cars on the Fitchburg Road, and see sweltering men in their shirt-sleeves(?)² take their seats with some well-dressed men and women, and see really the very little difference of level that is between them all, and then imagine the astonishment that would strike the polished inmates of English first-class carriages if such masters should enter and sit beside them, I see that it is not fit to tell Englishmen that America is like England. No, this is the Paradise of the third class; here everything is cheap; here everything is for the poor. England is the Paradise of the first class; it is essentially aristocratic, and the humbler classes have made up their minds to this, and do contentedly enter into the system. In England every man you meet is some man's son; in America, he may be some man's father.

Miss Hennell said at Edward Street to Carlyle, "Do you think, if we should stand on our heads, we should understand better?"³

It is true that there are no men in England quite ideal, living in an ideal world, and working on politics and social life only from that. Carlyle is mixed up with the politics of the day, earth-son Antaeus. Milton mixes with politics, but from the ideal side.

"Is not this of mine a tolerable gallery?" said Philip Hone. "Yes," said Leslie, "but who would think of valuing a tolerable egg?"

Works on art are like the museums themselves, each of which has a few gems and the rest is rubbish. I want a manual which has all the works of the first style engraved and described; and then of the second style.

All the gems are fossil wine.

When Nature adds a little brain, she adds a little difficulty, or provides work for the brain to do. Were brains to be sinecures? A weevil, a mite, is born in the plum or the bark on which he is to feed; but she has not thought it necessary, when a man is born, to insert him in a mountain of bread and cheese.

-----------------
Notes by the editor of the Journals:

1. Possibly the third of the three lectures on Natural History of Intellect in the course of six given in June in London, though that is elsewhere mentioned as " Tendencies and Duties of Men of Thought."
2. The question-mark is in the manuscript, Mr. Emerson not feeling quite sure whether he remembered shirt-sleeves in a first-class car at home, for at that time there were also second-class cars with a reduced fare.
3. At one of the philosophical lectures in the Portman Square course.

---

{Wandering Jew; source: wikipedia}

Naphtha

{What the Fitchburg Railroad looked like; source: catskillarchive.com}

Sara Hennell was author of "Thoughts in Aid of Faith" and close friend of George Eliot.

{Heracles and Antaeus, red-figured krater by Euphronios, 515–510 BC, Louvre; "The story of Antaeus has been used as a symbol of the spiritual strength which accrues when one rests one's faith on the immediate fact of things." source: wikipedia}

Philip Hone Philip Hone: "merchant, born in New York city in 1781; died there, 4 May, 1851. He was a successful merchant in New York, one of the founders of the Mercantile library association of that city, and was mayor in 1825-'6, winning by his conduct as an upright magistrate praise from the highest, as well as the lowest of his constituents. President Taylor afterward appointed him naval officer of New York. He was a man of fine social qualities, and of a noble and generous character. Hone's marble bust, furnished at the request of the association, stands in the hall of the New York mercantile library." (source).

Leslie Hone, brother of Philip

---

Some sources:

Journals Of Ralph Waldo Emerson 1820-1872, with Annotations, edited by Edward Waldo Emerson and Waldo Emerson Forbes; Vol. VII, 1845-1848, (New York, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1912)

Washington Irving, Esquire, Ambassador At Large From the New World to the Old, by George S. Hellman (London: Jonathan Cape, Limited, 1925)

European revolutions and the American literary Renaissance. by Larry J. Reynolds (Yale University Press, 1988)

Esther Bubley

In 1943 Esther Bubley took these photos for the Farm Security Administration. Most come from Washington DC, her home base, but there are many as well from a series of bus trips she took in September. They show changes in daily life brought about by the entry of the U.S. into World War II — men in uniform, women taking over men's jobs, and the like — but they also show things going on as they had before, including the injustices suffered by American Negroes at the time.

There's information about her and her work at the bottom of this page. Except as noted, all photos come from LC's Prints and Photos Division.

Most of the FSA photographers used 35mm rangefinder cameras such as the famous Leica III, but Bubley used a twin lens reflex camera and this accounts both for the innovative use she made of low-angle shots and for the distinctive square images. Hers was not the famous Rolleiflex, but was almost certainly an Ikoflex. In 1944 Gordon Parks took a photo of her with the camera. It's easy to tell it's not a Rollei but it took me quite a while to identify it as an Ikoflex (see images below).

Click images to view full size.

---

January, Washington DC

{Woman war worker in a woman's boarding house listening to a murder mystery on the radio}

{Detail of this image}

---

March, Washington DC

{Spectator in the National Gallery of Art on a Sunday afternoon}

{Sitting on the steps of the National Gallery of Art on a Sunday afternoon}

{Members of the congregation during services at the First Wesleyan Methodist church}

{The Campbell family at home after church}

{Detail of this image}

{Detail of this image}

---

April, Washington DC

{Girl sitting alone in the Sea Grill, a bar and restaurant waiting for a pickup. "I come in here pretty often, sometimes alone, mostly with another girl, we drink beer, and talk, and of course we keep our eyes open--you'd be surprised at how often nice, lonesome soldiers ask Sue, the waitress, to introduce them to us" }

{Detail of this image}

{Jitterbugs at an Elk's Club dance, the "cleanest dance in town" }

{Detail of this image}

{Pin boy at a bowling alley}

{Detail of this image}

---

May, Washington DC

{Children watching the animals at the National Zoological Park}

---

June, Washington DC and Arlington VA

{Hattie B. Sheehan, a streetcar conductor for the Capitol Transit Company}

{Benie Lee Neal and Patricia Kaufman are checking the perforated tape at the Western Union telegraph office}

{Arlington, Virginia. Waiting for the bus at Arlington Farms, a residence for women who work in the U.S. government for the duration of the war}

{Arlington, Virginia. Sailors bicycled over to Arlington Farms, a residence for women who work in the U.S. government for the duration of the war, from Washington in search of a date}

{Arlington, Virginia. Women engaged in conversation on a street car}

{Listening to the U.S. Army band play at a free concert in front of the Capitol}

{Detail of this image}

---

July, Washington DC and Glen Echo MD

{Glen Echo, Maryland. Sun bathers on the sand beach at the swimming pool in the Glen Echo amusement park. Photo shows Claire Bubley in the foreground and Enid Bubley behind her. (Source: Enid Bubley's son, Jerry Raines, 2006). }

{Washington, D.C. Negroes in front of their home, which is an alley dwelling near the capitol}

{Washington, D.C. Negroes in front of their alley dwellings near the capitol}

{Detail of this image}

{Detail of this image}

{Detail of this image}

{Detail of this image}

{Washington, D.C. A worker for the American Rescue Society soliciting funds}

{Detail of this image}

---

September, bus trips

{A Greyhound bus trip from Louisville, Kentucky, to Memphis, Tennessee, and the terminals. Sign at bus station. Rome, Georgia}

{A Greyhound bus trip from Louisville, Kentucky, to Memphis, Tennessee, and the terminals. Waiting for the bus at the Memphis terminal}

{Detail of this image}

{A Greyhound bus trip from Louisville, Kentucky, to Memphis, Tennessee, and the terminals}

{Detail of this image}

{Street scene in a town in Ohio}

{A rest stop for Greyhound bus passengers on the way from Louisville, Kentucky, to Nashville, Tennessee, with separate accommodations for colored passengers}

{A Greyhound bus trip from Louisville, Kentucky, to Memphis, Tennessee, and the terminals. Men sitting by road side on Sunday afternoon, between Memphis and Chattanooga}

{Passengers on a Greyhound bus going from Chicago, Illinois to Cincinnati, Ohio. Most of the standing passengers are local fares going from their farms to town}

{Bus trip from Knoxville, Tennessee, to Washington, D.C. Schoolgirl waiting to get on bus at small town in Tennessee}

{Bus trip from Knoxville, Tennessee, to Washington, D.C. Schoolgirl waiting to get on bus at small town in Tennessee}

{ Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Passengers in the waiting room of the Greyhound bus terminal}

{A Greyhound bus trip from Louisville, Kentucky, to Memphis, Tennessee, and the terminals. Passengers standing in aisles on Memphis-Chattanooga Greyhound bus}

{Detail of this image}

{A Greyhound bus trip from Louisville, Kentucky, to Memphis, Tennessee, and the terminals. Waiting for a bus at the Memphis station}

{A Greyhound bus trip from Louisville, Kentucky, to Memphis, Tennessee, and the terminals}

{A Greyhound bus trip from Louisville, Kentucky, to Memphis, Tennessee, and the terminals. Hailing a Macon-bound bus on the highway in Georgia}

{A Greyhound bus trip from Louisville, Kentucky, to Memphis, Tennessee, and the terminals. Small boy waiting for the bus at Chattanooga.}

---

October, Washington DC

{Students entering the building at Woodrow Wilson High School}

{Feet of a student at Woodrow Wilson High School}

{Algebra students at Woodrow Wilson High School}

{Listening to the teacher's instructions in a physical education class at Woodrow Wilson High School}

{Watching a football game}

---

December, Washington DC

{Lynn Massman, wife of a second class petty officer who is studying in Washington, cooking dinner}

{A sailor getting some help in wrapping his Christmas gifts at the United Nations service center}

{A picture-taking machine in the lobby at the United Nations service center}

{Detail of this image}

{Detail of this image}

---

About Esther Bubley

{Esther Bubley, self-portrait c. 1950}

{This shot shows her Ikoflex camera and her flash technique; ca. 1945; source: flickr}

{Esther Bubley at Bayway Oil Refinery, by Gordon Parks, December 1944}

{Esther Bubley with her Ikoflex iii 853/16; photo by John Vachon, 1944; source: flickr}

---

LC had a web page from an exhibit by ESTHER BUBLEY. It says:

Military and political events overseas were not the only subjects reporters and photographers covered during World War II. Photographer Esther Bubley (b. 1921) found ample subject matter to explore on the American homefront as the nation mobilized for war.

Twenty-year-old Bubley arrived in Washington, D.C., in 1941, fresh from art school and a short stint with Vogue and eager to earn a living with her camera. Although she soon found work as a lab technician at the National Archives, Bubley's ambition was to work for Roy Stryker. Stryker, head of the documentary photography project of the Historical Section, Farm Security Administration (FSA) Documentary Photo project from 1935 to 1943, was an outstanding mentor and teacher, who attracted young photographers to work for him.

During her off-hours, Bubley set out to prove her camera skills by snapping wartime subjects around the nation's capital. Her unvarnished images of life in the city's boarding houses for war workers impressed Stryker enough to recruit the aspiring photographer into the Office of War Information (OWI), where the Historical Section had been relocated.

OWI sent Bubley on at least one cross-country bus trip, during which she produced hundreds of images of a country in transition from the doldrums of the Great Depression to the fevered pace of war. Unlike many of her colleagues, however, Bubley was not drawn to the awesome industrial complex spawned by the war, preferring instead to focus on average Americans. "Put me down with people, and it's just overwhelming," Bubley said of her focus on the human dimension of mobilization.

About Bubley, see also:

Esther Bubley: American Photo-Journalist

Esther Bubley, photojournalist

Esther Bubley: Techniques and Equipment

More photos of Esther Bubley on flickr

---

Ikoflex images:

{Ikoflex III (853/16). This camera has a distinctive Albanda finder and the shape of the lens mount is unique. It was produced 1939-40. The operating lens is a Tessar 2.8 in Compur-Rapid. Source of these images: pacificrimcamera

{Ikoflex image from an eBay auction}

About the Ikoflex:

More images and a 1939 advertisement: Ikoflex III 853/16

A flickr page on the camera: Ikoflex III 853/16