These Americans

August 30, 2011 3:36 PM

These Americans is a diverse collection of public archive photographs: 1980s Wrestling, Warhol Polaroids, 1970s NYC gangs, Jayne Mansfield, polygamists, Al Capone, the KKK, FSA photographer Russell Lee, civil rights photographer Jim Peppler, early 20th century Mexican border town photographer, Gertrude Fitzgerald, &tc. It is a project from American Suburb X. Many links are NSFW.
posted by xod (5 comments total)

Wrestlers relaxing after a match
posted by growabrain at 5:04 PM on August 30, 2011

Warriors! Come out and play!
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 5:20 PM on August 30, 2011

Lots of good stuff there, but a little more context would be nice.
For example, who the hell are those people in the polygamists link, and why is there a number in each of the pictures? Yes, I can Google it, but I shouldn't have to, and in a lot of the other collections, I have nothing to go on.
posted by beagle at 6:13 PM on August 30, 2011

According to the site the gang is called Savage Skulls. Turns out there quite a bit of footage of them on youtube.

This has some rather eerie music.
This features Savage Skulls and Savage Nomads.

There is also a documentary from 1979 called 80 Blocks from Tiffany's here is Part 1
Also interesting is the Hoe Avenue peace meeting, which Wikipedia claims is the inspiration for the gang meeting in the movie version of The Warriors but also notes that the book was written 6 years before the meeting even happened.

Seems like there were dozens of this type of gang in the Bronx.
posted by Ad hominem at 7:11 PM on August 30, 2011 [1 favorite]

At least one of those is a Canadian!
posted by klanawa at 11:01 PM on August 30, 2011