One afternoon here at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, I was hunting through the many boxes of photos that comprise the Philadelphia Record Photograph Morgue looking for evidence of South Philadelphia life during the Great Depression era.  The Philadelphia Record was a newspaper published daily from 1882 to 1947, and the Historical Society houses the Record’s photograph “morgue”—over 150,000 items depicting every facet of life all over the Philadelphia region. The black-and-white prints span from 1920-47, and include both published and unpublished photographs. In this vast collection, I stumbled upon a folder filled with photos and captions that described the life of Ms. Bella Iveson, resident of 111 Washington Avenue, circa 1939.

(more…)

More