The Chicagoist will be launching later but in the meantime please enjoy our archives.

1940's Chicago, In Glorious Technicolor

By Karl Klockars in Arts & Entertainment on Aug 3, 2010 6:00PM

While we take a short break from bringing you more of Charles Cushman's 60's era photos this week, we stumbled across a repository of striking color photos from even earlier in our history. These beautiful color photos are from the Library of Congress as part of a series from the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information, as part of an effort to document how the Depression affected the country. This particular selection of railroad-centric Chicago shots by Jack Delano show the city as an industrial, agricultural and transportational hub in the days before air travel became dominant. The Denver Post put together this series of photographs spanning the nation, all of which are worth looking at, but naturally the ones featuring Chicago caught our eyes the most. You can find the rest of the FSA/OWI series here.