Poor Children

I wonder what life was like for this child, growing up in what looks to be a big city tenement house?  Look at old photographs, and one would assume that the world was made up of nice, middle class people living in nice, middle class neighborhoods.  That's because most poor people couldn't afford cameras.   Poverty isn't a pleasant way to live.  I know that from experience, but it is a great photographic subject.

Hobo of the Great Depression

This image is a perfect example of my love/hate relationship to old photo dealers. I was told that this photograph was taken from an album, and labeled "bum, Washington, D.C. 1934." Maybe that's true, or maybe it was just something the dealer told me to make a $2.00 sale. In any case, in an album, this image would have had historical context. It would be possible to see what the photographer was drawn to. It could have shown a much broader picture of the United States during the great depression. As a stand alone image, removed from the album, it's an interesting image, and nothing else.