Figure 1 – Resident of Plain City, OH standing in front of L.L Spiger clothing store circa 1935. Image from the Frm Security Administration and in the collection of the United States Library of Congress and in the public domain.

February 4th was the 102nd anniversary of the birth of civil rights hero Rosa Parks, and in celebration of the event a collection of her memorabilia including 7,500 manuscripts and 2,500 photographs became available to scholars at the United States Library of Congress.  These are on loan to the LOC for ten years from the Howard G. Buffett Foundation.  The photographs are for the most part the kind of personal snaps that, when they belonged to a person of critical note, cause the hair on the back of your neck to rise.  Especially poignant is a posed image of Ms. Parks reenacting her famous bus protest.  The effect is interesting, because while you know that it is posed, it really does not seem to detract from your sense of the bravery of the woman.

Well, one thing leads to another and in an accompanying article on the health effects of the northern migration of African Americans to escape Southern Jim Crow I found the amazing photograph of Figure 1 from the Farm Security Administration, also in the collections of the LOC showing an African American resident of Plain City, Ohio circa 1935 smoking a pipe in front of a clothing store.This image is gorgeous for so many technical reasons that I found myself returning to it over and over again.  I just had to share it here. I love the tones.  I love the fact that the gentleman is caught in mid puff. And I love the way that the hats seem to march upward and draw our attention to the figure.