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October 1942. "Scrap and salvage depot. Butte, Montana." View full size. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Russell Lee for the Office of War Information.
In the late 30's, as trucks and train cars loaded with scrap metal rolled through Southgate, CA, headed for the docks, my father-in-law (to be) told his young son "we're going to get this all back in the form of bullets and bombs," and we did.
Note the proximity of this dump to what look like nice houses forming a neighborhood. Does the pile just grow or do they sort it out and send it somewhere else?
[This was scrap for the war effort. - Dave]
Sanford and Son were the small time scrap men who brought the metals to the large scrapyards and made them what they are today. What you see in this picture are the men unloading their truck of #2 Steel and Yellow Brass. This particular scrapyard most likely is on several acres. These were the scrapyards that supplied metals for the war. In our scrapyard, the trucks are unloaded by cranes and dumped into shipping containers and taken by truck to ports to be sent overseas. We still see the men as shown above who come in with their loads and the same trucks.
Shall I be the one to make the obvious Sanford and Son comparison? Complete with the red truck. I love it.
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