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December 1941. "Christiansted, Saint Croix, Virgin Islands. The laundry at the Christiansted hospital. Here all the linen for the hospital is washed." Photo by Jack Delano. View full size.
I'll have to work some different Engels.
Seldom do the stars align so propitiously.
Given the hygienic practices on display, that hospital must surely have served as anteroom to the morgue.
The cast iron boiling pot at the right-center of the photo is a repurposed kettle originally made for boiling down sugar cane juice to make molasses and eventually rum. At the time this picture was taken, sugar cane was still a major crop on St. Croix. The pot itself probably dates to the 1700s. One sees them all over the island.
The island was owned by Denmark during the sugar plantation/slave days. Slavery was outlawed by Denmark in 1844, well before the U.S.
Hardly the hygienic facilities one expects of a hospital. It has a depressingly Civil War vibe to it.
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