Box 1

The Marion Palfi slide collection contains 135 full-color, 35-millimeter slides of photographs taken of New York, (N.Y.) and locations throughout the American South in 1945 before the end of World War II.

The photographs capture a diverse spectrum of the population and of American life toward the end of the Second World War. The collection features African American servicemen in uniform, as well as photographs of African Americans working in a wartime factory plant. New York's Harlem neighborhood is also displayed prominently in the slide collection. Scenes of Harlem buildings and residents, as well as of building entrances, including the now defunct Sydenham Hospital, were immortalized by Palfi's lens. Other New York buildings that Palfi photographed include: City College of New York, the Columbia University Library, and New York Hospital. Palfi also photographed New York City bus drivers and other urban scenes, such as children at a playground.

Aspects of social and economic life in the mid-1940s are apparent throughout the slides. Throngs of people waiting in line for jobs at an employment office, as well as slides of housing in poor areas, stress the economic disparity of life in 1945. Slides of "Whites Only" segregation signs on storefronts call attention to the racial discrimination of the Jim Crow South. Life for southern African Americans is evident in photos of farming, church schools, laborers, and country scenes.

Arrangement of the collection folders mirror the slide boxes in which the slides were originally placed. Two sets of preservation duplicates are stored with the collection.