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- MEMPHIS ASF DEPOT: Summer 1944 [Interior Title - Original Photo Album]
MEMPHIS ASF DEPOT: Summer 1944 [Interior Title - Original Photo Album]
MEMPHIS ASF DEPOT: Summer 1944 [Interior Title - Original Photo Album]
A large album of original photography documenting the environs, soldiers, prisoners, equipment, etc... of the Memphis Army Service Forces Depot during the Summer of 1944. A sprawling facility in the southeastern part of Memphis, its land was acquired and developed as a supply Depot in the run-up to U.S. involvement in World War II and eventually activated in 1942. At its peak it covered more than 600 acres and boasted 75 million square feet of covered storage, supplying an estimated 10% of all non-munitions material to U.S. forces.
The photographs here would seem to focus on the Summer of 1944 while the Depot was an integral link in the Allied supply chain and housed some 300 German prisoners of War whose work alongside American servicemen and civilian support staff (which judging by the photos here, were largely African-American) is documented in about 12 images here.
The Depot saw use as a prolific munitions dump after the War's end and is today a highly controversial EPA superfund site, home to some of Memphis' densest African-American populations. An online photo repository created by an amateur Memphis historian shows several images of a nearly identical album (but with distinctly different captions below duplicate prints to those found here), otherwise we note no other record of a surviving copy of this album in collections or commerce.
A scarce and impressive WWII-era photographic record of supply chain and management with a specific focus on Memphis, Tennessee, German prisoners of War, African-American labor, environmental fallout and remediation, etc...
[Photo Albums] : [World War II]. MEMPHIS ASF DEPOT: Summer 1944 [Interior Title - Original Photo Album]. Memphis, Tennessee: (1944). Approximately 17" x 13" commercial album. Thick wooden boards covered in black cloth and hinged by metal strips to a similarly constructed post binding assembly at left margin. Posts holding 77 tan card leaves. The first with manuscript title text in blank ink, the balance holding a total of 150 black and white 8" x 10" photographs either loosely fit into corner mounts or adhesive mounted to rectos and versos. Some mild degradation to prints, seemingly from storage against facing photographs, and infrequent edge wear resembling insect biting to a few prints and leaves, otherwise stout, solid and about very good.
A large album of original photography documenting the environs, soldiers, prisoners, equipment, etc... of the Memphis Army Service Forces Depot during the Summer of 1944. A sprawling facility in the southeastern part of Memphis, its land was acquired and developed as a supply Depot in the run-up to U.S. involvement in World War II and eventually activated in 1942. At its peak it covered more than 600 acres and boasted 75 million square feet of covered storage, supplying an estimated 10% of all non-munitions material to U.S. forces.
The photographs here would seem to focus on the Summer of 1944 while the Depot was an integral link in the Allied supply chain and housed some 300 German prisoners of War whose work alongside American servicemen and civilian support staff (which judging by the photos here, were largely African-American) is documented in about 12 images here.
The Depot saw use as a prolific munitions dump after the War's end and is today a highly controversial EPA superfund site, home to some of Memphis' densest African-American populations. An online photo repository created by an amateur Memphis historian shows several images of a nearly identical album (but with distinctly different captions below duplicate prints to those found here), otherwise we note no other record of a surviving copy of this album in collections or commerce.
A scarce and impressive WWII-era photographic record of supply chain and management with a specific focus on Memphis, Tennessee, German prisoners of War, African-American labor, environmental fallout and remediation, etc...
[Photo Albums] : [World War II]. MEMPHIS ASF DEPOT: Summer 1944 [Interior Title - Original Photo Album]. Memphis, Tennessee: (1944). Approximately 17" x 13" commercial album. Thick wooden boards covered in black cloth and hinged by metal strips to a similarly constructed post binding assembly at left margin. Posts holding 77 tan card leaves. The first with manuscript title text in blank ink, the balance holding a total of 150 black and white 8" x 10" photographs either loosely fit into corner mounts or adhesive mounted to rectos and versos. Some mild degradation to prints, seemingly from storage against facing photographs, and infrequent edge wear resembling insect biting to a few prints and leaves, otherwise stout, solid and about very good.