Snapshots of the Past

Packing peanut butter – Vintage Print

Packing peanut butter, [between 1915 and 1925] — historic photograph
Packing peanut butter, [between 1915 and 1925]. Historic photograph from the Detroit Publishing Company collection.

(Originally scanned by the Library of Congress. Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)

Description

A window into the past: Packing peanut butter, preserved in this historic photograph. The original is held by the Library of Congress, so what you hang is a true record of its time.

Choose the framed print, ready to hang the day it arrives, or the unframed print for a frame of your own. It makes a striking addition to a living room, study or office, and a thoughtful gift. Free shipping in the lower 48 states. Snapshots of the Past, founded in 2001, has served tens of thousands of customers worldwide.

Packing peanut butter

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Women workers on a peanut butter packing line are the focus of this view, and the record's subject terms point to the assembly-line methods that were reshaping food factories in the years after World War I. The image survives as a 5 x 7 inch glass negative made by the Detroit Publishing Company, a commercial firm known for its large catalog of American scenes. It is a copy of a print that was heavily retouched, so the clean outlines and tonal smoothness owe as much to that hand work as to the original exposure. Industrial pictures like this often presented factory labor as orderly and efficient, and that framing is worth keeping in mind when reading it.

Created / published[between 1915 and 1925]
Medium1 negative : glass ; 5 x 7 in.
GenreDry plate negatives.Photographic prints Reproductions.
NotesPhotograph of a heavily retouched photographic print. Probably related to D420-2718 and D420-2782 to D420-2790. Detroit Publishing Co. no. K 2718. Gift; State Historical Society of Colorado; 1949.
SubjectsPeanut butter. Women--Employment. Assembly-line methods. Food industry.
SourceLibrary of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection
Original scan973 × 678 px
ReferenceAMZ-SOTP-DET-77276

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