I will take the castigation for my ongoing use of Google Chrome as a web browser in 2026, mainly because of all the work flows and systems I have come to use over the years. One of these, maybe the most precious, is the one that distracts me from tasks.
That;s right, because when most people open a new browser tab or window, they get a blank screen or some buttons for browser tools or I don’t know what, but with the ongoing use of the duct taped together Free to Use Browser Extension, I get to enjoy a random public domain image from the Library of Congress.
Today I was looking for something that I now forget what it was, but when I opened a new browser tab, I saw an archival style image of crates of peaches.
Why did it draw me in? It’s nothing that is a funky old time scene, people in period costumes, an old machine, or even mimetic architecture. Just peaches. I guess it was the patterns and the interesting composition angle.
I just know a sense when there is a “tug” on my brain, so I follow the click from the browser to the Library of Congress record for this photo. My path continues when I highlight the text Crates of Peaches and click my own Flickr Commons lookup bookmarklet (another tool I’d hate to part with) that with that click does a search on the highlighted phrase, usually enough to find the photo of interest in the results.
Sure enough I get to the flickr page for the same image. There is invariably interesting extra information in the comments, information not available in the official LoC page, look comments there that are 18 years old (!!) noting the color of the image being perhaps faded and notes on the composition.
The thing that sparks the next jump for me the location name of Delta County, Colorado, thinking I may have been there. Sure enough a google map search –my Chrome has a custom search shortcut that I can type in the browser bar map TAB Delta County Colorado and instantly get to the map. Yup I was right, this is in northwest Colorado and included in Delta County is the town of Paonia, the place I have visited my friends Oogie and Ken who run the Desert Weyr sheep ranch.
More memory clicks, I am pretty sure that on one of my visits they suggested I stop on the drive back to Arizona to buy a box of peaches that the region is known for. Yup, a search of my own photos (again in Chrome I can type f TAB peaches for a quick search on peaches in my flickr photos) finds that in 2016 I stopped in Delta and bought a box of these juicy giants (and I have lost the story why the name of Trevor, man selling them, had significance)
The color says a lot of what that original photo in the Library of Congress would have looked like (and I can vouch they were tasty).
I’m aware of the significance of the Depression and years later photography of the Farm Security Administration:
The FSA is famous for its small but highly influential photography program, 1935–1944, that portrayed the challenges of rural poverty. The photographs in the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information (FSA/OWI) Photograph Collection form an extensive pictorial record of American life between 1935 and 1944.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farm_Security_Administration
This feels like something likely that would be trashed by the current occupant of the White House who recently decided that the NASA Goddard Library should be tossed. What kind of civilization destroys history? What kind of democracy shrugs at this?
Regardless I wonder about that composition of the peaches in the 1940s LoC photo. It’s not just a picture, its got an artistic bent to it. I note the photo credit to “Lee, Russell, 1903-1986, photographer” — now I am learning about this photographer’s legacy in a Library of Congress blog post “Russell Lee’s Look at America” that Lee is credited with more than 19,000 FSA historic photos, more than twice any other photographer, including Dorthea Lange.
Living out of his car, Lee photographed life in 29 states between 1936 and 1942. The more than 100 photos included in the biography demonstrate Lee’s talent for capturing images emblematic of early 20th century concerns, including the ecological catastrophes of dust storms and floods, the population shift from rural to urban areas, discrimination against racial and ethnic groups and life on the home front during World War II.
https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2021/04/russell-lees-look-at-america/
That post features an iconic photo of tires for sale in San Marcos Texas (been there too) I will leave it for the reader to click and appreciate. It’s so weird that a public domain image like that is also via reverse image search fond for sale on Alamy etsy, et al. Shrug.
Lee’s Wikipedia article also cites his contributions of photos of the Japanese Internment camps in 1942.
Okay it’s just a picture of boxes of peaches, and I’m sure someone could use AI to generate some cartoon quick version in no time. But where is the story of the person behind the camera? And would said image generate my own connections to Delta Colorado?
I think these web rabbit whole trips are just peachy…
Featured Image: Crates of peaches in the orchard, Delta County, Colo. (LOC) flickr photo by The Library of Congress shared with no copyright restriction (Flickr Commons)
