Jan 25, 2024 - Sale 2657

Sale 2657 - Lot 39

Price Realized: $ 625
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900

(THE FLOOD OF 1936)


A group of 16 photographs from the Massachusetts Works Progress Administration depicting the flood and its aftermath.
The images depict Springfield, Lowell, and South Hadley after the historic flood that occurred across the Northeast and further, resulting in record-setting water heights, 150-200 deaths, and massive amounts of damage. In Massachusetts, the Holyoke Dam was damaged and later a dam at Uxbridge. The images feature workers making repairs and cleaning the streets, WPA officials touring the flood zone, and scenes of the aftermath. Silver prints, the images measuring approximately 190x241 mm; 7½x9½ inches, most of the sheets slightly larger, all with a Massachusetts Works Progress Administration label or stamp with the typed or handwritten credit, title, date, and caption, and a Research Library stamp dated 1936, on verso. March 1936.