Le Jeune: 1938

When I was growing up we used to get unleaded or white gas for our Coleman lanterns when we went camping at the Amoco station. Leaded gas also had a pink dye added to it so you knew it had lead in it.

With regard to an earlier comment: You could put unleaded "white gas" into your car as a fuel but then you'd have to break out your small can of lead additive to put in with it or your car would be jumping like a washer spinning with a lop-sided load of clothes in it. The sign on the pump let you know you were getting true motor fuel.

Pepsi and Old North State Tobacco.

A Nehi sign ( grape anyone? ) and the obligatory Cocoa-Cola sign as well.

Also signs for "Old Gold, Camel, and Luckies Cigarettes" and for the roll your own crowd "ripple" and "Star tobacco as well. I think "Sensation" was a cigarette brand as well...

It looks like they've split a poboy.

At least they have shoes to wear to school. My dad was about the same age in rural Louisiana at the time and wasn't quite so fortunate. Shoes were a "sometime" thing for kids in the country.

The photos is great for its detail of a general store, but I don't get the point about the Negro children's lunches. What am I missing?

and I didn't see anything remarkable other than the girl got the better end of the deal food-wise. Could it be that African-American kids in rural 1938 Louisiana didn't often have lunches to carry?

Didn't know in those early days gas pumps carried the sign "contains lead." Did unleaded gas exist then?

[It's all unleaded until the lead gets added at the refinery. The warning "for use as a motor fuel only" means don't use it in a stove or heater, since lead is poisonous. Gasoline for cooking and heating, without additives, was called "white gas." - Dave]