Of the 1940s, Hats, and Sunscreens
Posted: 08/08/2010 Filed under: Health, Photography, Thoughts | Tags: 1930s, 1940s, color photographs, color slides, Environmental Working Group, Great Depression, hats, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, retinyl palmitate, safety, sunscreen, sunscreen risks, sunscreen safety, The Denver Post, Vitamin a 5 Comments »
Faro and Doris Caudill, homesteaders. Pie Town, New Mexico, October 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress. From The Denver Post.
Matt sent me a link to this wonderful collection of rare color photographs from the late 1930s and early 1940s, taken as color slides by photographers from the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information to capture scenes of rural and small town America during the Great Depression.
For those of us born long after the 1940s, it is striking, almost jarring, to see the lives of folks of that time caught in crisp color. Seeing these photos, the people and events suddenly felt real to me in a way they never had when I’d viewed black-and-white images from that era, or films reenacting it.
So take a look. One pattern that particularly struck me was the prevalence of hats on people of all ages, which is a sartorial trend that is deserving of a comeback!
I’m a big advocate of hats, both because they are lovely, and because they (along with lightweight long sleeves and other common-sense measures like seeking shade and avoiding mid-day sun exposure) can offer more consistent and effective (and potentially safer) sun protection than sunscreen, particularly when sunscreen is used as most of us use it: inconsistently and in inadequate amounts.
In that vein, here are links to the Environmental Working Group’s surprising sunscreen facts (so interesting, particularly the recent FDA finding that Vitamin A/retinyl palmitate, a common sunscreen ingredient, applied to the skin in sunlight can speed the formation of skin cancers), their incredibly helpful list of best sunscreens, and their “find your sunscreen” search tool.
Whatever protective measures you choose, have fun out there in these last weeks of summertime! It’s hard to believe that autumn and school are just around the corner…
Oh, Laurelin, thank you for sharing those gorgeous pictures. They do seem so much more real in colour, don’t they? Yet, the one with the dugout and a garden looks like a scene from a fairy-tale.
Aren’t they wonderful? It turns out, you can view 1600 color photos taken by the FSA during that era here: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsachtml/fsowhome.html
You can search by subject/keyword — it’s really fun!
I like this post. The photos are great!!
I always use protection when I’m gonna be exposed and a cap, and I didn’t know the sunscreen thing about the some risks with it on!
I should take a look at that list
xxx
The EWG list is haunting me. As someone who has donned sunscreen 365 days a year for at least 15 years, I was more than a little freaked out to find all the products I use on the ‘dangerous’ list. Tracking down local sources of the recommended products is not exactly a walk in the park.
The EWG list was unsettling for a lot of us, I think. In the last two years, I’ve made a lot of changes to the personal care products I use, based on EWG’s sunscreen list and EWG’s Skin Deep Database (http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/), a database ranking the safety of many personal care products. I agree that it’s great to buy local when you can! Since, like you, my local stores are limited, in the end I ordered many things from saffronrouge.com — it’s a great resource for eco- and body-friendly lotions and potions.