There’s an incredible new thing for you to spend some time on and it’s a window into the past of America unlike anything you have ever seen. See, back in the 1930s and 40s, the government employed photographers to document everyday life in America…in color. These are not colorized black and white images they are actually color photos from the first half of the 20th century and there’s so much geared goodness to see in them that we know you’ll love it.

The Library of Congress has published the photos on a dedicated Flickr page and they are wracking up views at an awesome pace because once you fall into this hole, you never come back out again. To see the world in color like this and to see so much of it in a mundane and regular way is magical. Photos from logging towns, state fairs, nature photos, farms, circuses, grocery stores, small towns and big cities. It really is a documentation of a life that seems so far away, so much simpler, and frankly so much less complicated on so many levels.

When these photos were taken there was not the slightest inkling that one day they would be turned into electronic copies of themselves and then distributed to the entire population of the world. No, when they were made the photographers were doing their jobs, trying to make it through the depression, trying to not think about a looming war that would take the lives of many people captured in these images.

This is powerful.

Hit the image below to visit one of the most stunning image collections –