As the 1960s came to an end, the rapid development of the American postwar decades had begun to take a noticeable toll on the environment, and the public began calling for action. In November 1971, the newly created Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a massive photo documentary project, called DOCUMERICA, to record these changes. More than 100 photographers were hired not only to document specific environmental issues, but to capture images of everyday life, showing how we interacted with the environment and capturing the way parts of America looked at that moment in history. By 1974, more than 80,000 photographs had been produced. The National Archives has made 15,000 of these images available, and I’ve spent much of the past week combing through those to bring you these 46 glimpses of America in the early 1970s, with an eye toward our then-ailing environment.
Water cooling towers of the John Amos Power Plant loom over a home located across the Kanawha River, near Poca, West Virginia, in August of 1973.
One of four bicyclists holds her ears against the roar of the jet taking off from National Airport in Washington, D.C., in May of 1973.
Clark Avenue and Clark Avenue bridge, looking east from West 13th Street, obscured by industrial smoke, in Cleveland, Ohio, in July of 1973.
Balloon logging in the Culp Creek drainage area of Oregon, near Eugene.
A mountain of damaged oil drums lies in a heap in an Exxon refinery near Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in December of 1972.
A man rides in a graffiti-covered subway car in New York City in May of 1973.
Construction on Lower Manhattan’s West Side, just north of the World Trade Center, May 1973.
Off-shore oil wells in Galveston Bay, off the Texas shore, in June of 1972.
Looking east along Alaska’s Glen Highway, toward Mount Drum (Elevation 12,002 Feet) at the intersection of the highway and the under-construction Trans-Alaska Pipeline in August 1974. The 48-inch diameter pipeline will cross the roadway between the two vehicles. The exact point is marked by a pair of wooden stakes along the right shoulder at Mile 673.
Prospect Creek Camp, lower foreground. In this eastern view the pipeline and road will run below the low hills in the distance left to right, north to south. Photo taken in August of 1973.
An exhibit at the first symposium on low-pollution power systems development, held at the Marriott Motor Inn, Ann Arbor, Michigan, in October of 1973. Vehicles and hardware were assembled at the EPA Ann Arbor Laboratory. Photo shows participants looking over the ESB “Sundancer,” an Experimental Electric Car.
Empty steel beer and soft drink cans are used to build experimental housing near Taos, New Mexico, in June 1974. Designer Michael Reynolds stands next to an interior wall in one of the structures. The exterior walls are constructed using eight-can units as building blocks. According to Reynolds, these houses, whose walls require 70,000 cans in all, can be built as much as 20 percent cheaper than conventional homes.
Smoke and gas from the burning of discarded automobile batteries pours into the sky near Houston, Texas, in July of 1972.
Day becomes night when industrial smog is heavy in North Birmingham, Alabama, as on this day in July of 1972. Sitting adjacent to the U.S. Pipe plant, this is the most heavily polluted area of the city.
Signs crowd the roadway in this Las Vegas street scene, shot in May of 1972.
A train on the Southern Pacific Railroad passes a five-acre pond, which was used as a dump site by area commercial firms, near Ogden, Utah, in April of 1974. The acid water, oil, acid clay sludge, dead animals, junked cars and other dump debris were cleaned up by several governmental groups under the supervision of the EPA. Some 1,200,000 gallons of liquid were pumped from the site, neutralized and taken to a disposal site.
Two youths in Uptown, Chicago, Illinois, a neighborhood of poor white southerners, in August of 1974.
Underground in the Virginia-Pocahontas Coal Company Mine #3, near Richlands, Virginia, in April 1974. The tunnel is 1,250 feet below the surface and one-and-a-half miles from the elevator shaft that brings the miners to and from work.
One of several highrise apartments whose construction was stopped by city ordinance to preserve Breezy Point Peninsula in Queens, New York, for public recreational use. Photo taken in May of 1973.
A crowded Hollywood freeway, seen in California in May of 1972.
A “closed” sign appears in front of this Portland, Oregon, gas station in June 1973, due to a gasoline shortage.
A Dune Buggy races down a dune in a recreational park near Florence, Oregon, in September of 1972.
A view down Colfax Avenue, in Denver, Colorado, in April of 1972.
The Peabody Coal Company in the Black Mesa area of Northeastern Arizona, in May of 1972.
An abandoned car sits in New York’s Jamaica Bay, in June of 1973.
From the National Water Quality Laboratory, a June 1973, photo of the severely deformed spine of a Jordanella fish, the result of methyl mercury present in the water.
Smoke is piped into this model of the city of Houston, allowing scientists to study the effect of buildings
and city layout on velocity and direction of smog dispersion.
test center near Pueblo, Colorado, in March of 1973. The experimental vehicle is designed to operate at speeds up
to 250 miles per hour, using electro-magnetic forces for noiseless propulsion.
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http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/11/documerica-images-of-america-in-crisis-in-the-1970s/100190/
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