At the Movies

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Tulare County, California. Farm Security Administration camp. At the movies: photo by Russell Lee, February 1942

Parables about a Kingdom of Hell whose ruler is not so much a Father of Lies as a Father of Wishes

-- W.H. Auden, in The Dyer's Hand (1962), on the novels of Nathanael West


Culture is one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language. This is so partly because of its intricate historical development, but mainly because it has now come to be used for important concepts in several intellectual disciplines and in several distinct and incompatible systems of thought.

The fw is cultura, L. from colere, L. Colere had a range of meanings: inhabit, cultivate, protect, honor with worship...

-- Raymond Williams, Keywords (revised edition, 1983)

Movie theatre, Chicago, Illinois: photo by John Vachon, July 1940

Blue island, Illinois. The Senise family going to the movies: photo by Jack Delano, February 1943




Man in front of movie theatre, Waco, Texas: photo by Russell Lee, November 1939

Saturday afternoon movie crowd, North Platte, Nebraska: photo by John Vachon, October 1938

Tulare County, California. Farm Security Administration camp. At the movies: photo by Russell Lee, February 1942

Photos from Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress