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July 1942. Woman and her daughter in the Frederick Douglass housing project in the Anacostia section of Washington, D.C. View full size. 4x5 safety film negative by Gordon Parks, Office of War Information.
The woman in this picture is cute enough to make a dead man sit up and walk, let alone take out on a date. Wonder what ever happened to her and the little girl.
I'd guess that this picture was taken in warm weather because the 'ankle stockings' on the lady were what the fashionable woman wore in warm weather.
I have a number of photos of my mother wearing these ankle stockings because a lady did NOT put bare feet into her shoes. Bare feet were for beaches or the countryside.
This is a wonderful photo. I have a photo of myself taken in a very similar cotton batiste dress as the little girl wears.
It is so nice and refreshing to see a black mother and child portrayed as how we really look outside of poverty and slavery! Bravo for this ONE AND ONLY foto of African Americans I've ever liked on this website. We would love to see more. There are some people out here who really want to see some of their heritage as well.
That is very nice plumbing for 1942, it put me in mind of what America was in 1942 and what it has now become.
FYI -- On January 20, 1934, New York City Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia filed a certificate establishing the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) as the first public housing authority in the country. Less than one year later, on December 3, 1935, a ribbon-cutting ceremony was held for First Houses, the city’s first public housing development. Where tenements had once been, there were now 123 new apartments, each with a private kitchen and bath, electrical outlets, an electric refrigerator and a stove. Eleven thousand New Yorkers submitted applications for the first apartments.
http://www.dchousing.org/hope6/henson_ridge_hope6.html
says:
"Built as temporary housing for World War II workers, Frederick Douglass had been deemed uninhabitable in 1998 and left vacant."
I thought the first public housing project was in Queens, NY, in the 1950's. the Laguardia houses named after the mayor.
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