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Collection: Marjory Collins - FSA/OWI Jan 1942 - June 1943

The photographs in the Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection form an extensive pictorial record of American life between 1935 and 1944. Photographer Marjory Collins was hired by the Office of War Information to photograph American life and support of the war effort. Across some 50 assignments, Ms. Collins captured iconic images of workers, families, and children all along the eastern part of the U.S. Her photos span January 1942 - June 1943 In 1944 Collins worked freelance for a construction company in Alaska before travelling to Africa and Europe on government and commercial assignments. Thereafter she worked mainly as an editor and a writer covering civil rights, the Vietnam War and women's movements. In the 1960s she edited American Journal of Public Health.[1] In the 1980s she moved to San Francisco where she obtained an M.A. in American Studies at Antioch College West. She died in 1985 at the age of 73.[1]

831 photos

Baltimore, Maryland. Shoe repair shop

Baltimore, Maryland. A meat warehouse

Baltimore, Maryland. Sign company

Baltimore, Maryland. Shoe store window

Baltimore, Maryland. Soldiers and their girls window shopping in the evening

Baltimore, Maryland. Air raid notice on a bus window

Baltimore, Maryland. Workers reading the newsstand papers while waiting for a trolley after work

Baltimore, Maryland. A street scene

Baltimore, Maryland. Rushing to catch a trackless trolley home from work at four p.m.

Baltimore, Maryland. Peanut stand

Baltimore, Maryland. Bus bound for the section at four p.m.

Baltimore, Maryland. Restaurant under the elevated trolley

Baltimore, Maryland. Every available bus in Baltimore has been pressed into service to fill wartime transportation needs. A church bus is waiting outside the Bethlehem Fairfield shipyard gates before three o'clock whistle

Baltimore, Maryland. Workers arriving at the Bethlehem Fairfield shipyard by a former pleasure boat of the Wilson Line, now used as a workers' transport

Baltimore, Maryland. Workers arriving at the Bethlehem Fairfield shipyard at three p.m.

Baltimore, Maryland. Workers arriving in shared cars at the Glenn L. Martin camouflaged parking space at seven a.m.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Swedish-American foreman and workers at the SKF roller bearing factory

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Swedish-American foreman of the SKF roller bearing factory

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Swedish-American worker at the SKF roller bearing factory

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Swedish-American foreman and worker at the SKF roller bearing factory

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Workers punching the clock at the SKF roller bearing factory

Swedish-American foreman at the SKF roller bearing plant reads to his Italian-American wife at home. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Executive at the SKF roller bearing factory

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Swedish-American foreman (left) at the SKF roller bearing factory