Carl Mydans: Trapped

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Stairway in rooming house, Washington, D.C.: photo by Carl Mydans, September 1935

Housing block mapped
interior,
front and back
entrances
distinguished
by use -- precarious
back porch
for kids, winding
staircase with carpet
in front
for adults
only
leading down
and out to
busy traffic
boulevard --
the individual living
units cramped --
for the conscious
at all times
of the rent
parents a
necessary
unromantic
fold-a-bed
solution to being one
hundred percent trapped.

House at 1400 block, Eastern Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio: photo by Carl Mydans, December 1935

Narrow street, New Brunswick, New Jersey: photo by Carl Mydans, February 1936

View from living quarters at 730 West Winnebago Street, looking toward alley, Milwaukee, Wisconsin: photo by Carl Mydans, April 1936

Cincinnati, Ohio: photo by Carl Mydans, December 1935

Typical wood frame house, Hamilton County, Ohio: photo by Carl Mydans, December 1935

House exterior on Van Horn Street, Hamilton County, Ohio: photo by Carl Mydans, December 1935

House exterior on Van Horn Street, Hamilton County, Ohio: photo by Carl Mydans, December 1935

Photos by Carl Mydans for U.S. Resettlement Administration from Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress