Reference specialist Jan Grenci pointed out this photo, which Farm Security Administration photographer Carl Mydans took in February 1936.
Although February is not a month when people in the mid-Atlantic region generally get to enjoy their porches (as we can testify), Jan noted Carl Mydans’ keen eye for a photographic opportunity:
I like the way the porches frame each other, seemingly to infinity. I also like the way the porch lights line up to direct your eye through the photo. Carl Mydans sure knew how to frame an image!
Learn more:
- View more photographs Mydans made in Manville, New Jersey. You’ll notice some have a black circle in the middle. Why? We’re looking at a negative, here. The Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information (FSA/OWI) Collection includes both images that were printed for FSA-OWI use in the 1930s and 1940s and those that were not printed at the time. In the early years of the project, a hole was punched into negatives that were not selected for printing. Later, this practice was discontinued. Read more about the FSA/OWI Collection and about the unprinted images.
- View a variety of depictions of porches and porch activity across the Prints and Photographs Division collections.
- View the Thesaurus for Graphic Materials information for the term Porches, which suggests narrower terms (specific kinds of porches), as well as related terms that help expand the search for this architectural feature.