Would Love to See a O scale kit of a country Gas/General Store with Black Folks running it.

I'm sure that's a colorized version of one of the WPA shots from when they sent photographers into rural America.

I think the structure in itself is amazing and I agree it'd make a great kit.

Black figures? Is there really a market for that? I'm just asking as I really don't know.

I model the south during the 1940s, and blacks lived in their own communities then (heck, they did as I was a kid, as late as the 70s). In the case of my layout, I understand that there were no black communities in the valley my layout takes place in. Heck, I don't think there are many (if any) blacks living out there even now. The RR I model did have a black shop worker, a WW1 vet who maintained the locomotives, but I don't think he ever crewed them.

A gas station like this, with customers and owner like this, would be deep inside a black community in most cases, regardless where in the US you're modeling.

It'd be cool to model, no question. I'd love to see someone with a layout someday modeling the back woods south where the majority of the figures and structures are exactly this, showing a black community.

There was a forum member, Vulcan, who scratch built that scene.  It was amazing!  He no longer posts here.  I wish he would come back.

This is the model:

I remember that. I think this would make a wonderful addition on any country road. Don

Wow! Put me down for one!

p51 posted:

I'm sure that's a colorized version of one of the WPA shots from when they sent photographers into rural America.

 

I agree its from the FSA/OWI collection but they took both B&W and Kodachrome pics. This was not colorized. See more here:

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/se...?st=grid&co=fsac

Pete

I remember this posting.  I reminded me of an experience my mother and aunt had in Virginia years ago, when they had a flat tire near such a store.  Patrons, hangers-on and storekeeper all came out and graciously helped them change the tire and quickly send them on their way.  I wish they had gotten a photo of the store.  Sounded like such a place, and southern hospitality.  There are several O scale old store kits that could be bashed into something resembling this.  There are figures that can be bashed, too.

Pete, unless they used two side by side cameras it is colorized. The B&W version is an exact version as the color one. Also if it was from a 4x5 Kodachrome it would have much richer color. Almost all the negatives and Kodachrome's were shot with 4x5 cameras. Don

Downtown Deco made a kit virtually like this, but I don't recall if it was HO or O scale. As far as the figures, there's not much out there to represent the African American community. There's one set by MTH and an old one by Model Power (church congregation), but neither has figures like those in that picture. It would make a fantastic scene, that's for sure. 

You are creating stereotypes.

David Minarik posted:

There was a forum member, Vulcan, who scratch built that scene.  It was amazing!  He no longer posts here.  I wish he would come back.

This is the model:

 

Yes, Fred is a great modeler and this one was really done very well.  I miss his postings also, but people got things they need to do.  Thanks Dave, for bringing this back up for us to see.  This picture of his model looks like it should have his signature on it.  Great work is always appreciated.

Dennis

David Minarik posted:

There was a forum member, Vulcan, who scratch built that scene.  It was amazing!  He no longer posts here.  I wish he would come back.

This is the model:

 

I, too remember Vulcan's postings mostly on the Sunday scenic showcase and wish he would return.  His work is nothing short of incredible!

I hope he is doing well.

Don

p51 posted

Black figures? Is there really a market for that? I'm just asking as I really don't know?

 

 

 

 

I'd like to think so. A town full of green cars is pretty silly too

As far as creating stereotypes, I think you'd need to be more specific. 

Any one of these men might be the shop keeper. My assumption is it would be the man in the doorway, ii.e. the closest man to the counter/last man out the door. He may be light skinned and still of African decent too????¿¿¿¿¿

Maybe Mom picked out matching shirts and pants for her two boys and the guy in the doorway is white?????¿¿¿¿¿

Basically I see nothing derogatory in the picture. The posters would like some integration, and posters pointing out facts; like living arrangements of the past and present. In the present the fact we are still segregated in places has been tip toed around...but it's getting better everyday IMO.

I think friendly folks at a gas station socializing is a good stereo type, but what do I know, I was thrown out of a few  for being "a half breed injun,"

Maybe I'm missing something. Is it about NORTH VS SOUTH? Id agree there, Because racism iS verywhere ...still. My "fun" happened about as far north as you can go in this country, and the last time was the late 70s. I get less sun than in my youth, so my skin is very pale, so  I'm not so sure it couldn't still happen to others even today. I hear it from white, black, and natives, but it has been getting better my whole life.

   The OP has good memories of good peole he'd like to recreate in good detail; good for him!

Im a little jealous they arent Native American to be honest.

A little "flesh colored" paint (,now there's a stereotype) and a drop or two of other color(?) ,and you'd be in business.

I'm sure you could find somebody to repaint skin tone  if thats too tiny for you.  I'd offer but my sight isn't what it used to be on tiny stuff, I think someone else could do it better today.

Looks like it would be something that Yorke might produce as a kit although the one FOS kit I've built makes me think of that as being a potential source of such a kit.  Bar MIlls, too.

Woodland Scenics does make some black people otherwise you can pint your own with any figure and some brown paint. If you buy people form WeHonest on the bay, they all look Chinese.

Matt Makens posted:

Woodland Scenics does make some black people otherwise you can pint your own with any figure and some brown paint. If you buy people form WeHonest on the bay, they all look Chinese.

Model Master #4602 skin tone dark if anybody's interested

I am not modeling the South, but mention above of native Americans reminds me of a stop at a gas station in the southwest desert, maybe Arizona, where the very stoic (stereotype?) Navajo? served me.  That I could model, but the station was in much better shape than that modeled above.  Luckily I have modeled a ghost town, so have a number of decrepit buildings.  Maybe I should add a gas station, as the last business still open?

That's a nice looking model/scene.  However, you might want to make a model of every gender and racial ethnicity in order to make sure everyone is included.  Maybe all genders and ethnicities could be included in a single model.

Or maybe you could just paint the skin on your figures to the color and shade that you are modeling?

aussteve posted:

That's a nice looking model/scene.  However, you might want to make a model of every gender and racial ethnicity in order to make sure everyone is included.  Maybe all genders and ethnicities could be included in a single model.

Or maybe you could just paint the skin on your figures to the color and shade that you are modeling?

Sure, you could, but if you look into the demographics of the US in the past, it wouldn't be very accurate. Historically, people lived in communities of people who looked like them. In some places, they still do.

Racist? Yeah, it was. But was it reality anyway?

Yeah, it was.

As for the original photo being color, color film from the 30s and 40s gave off a totally different look for color. There's no way the original photo was shot in the 30s or 40s and was done in color, looking like that. I've handled and studied a LOT of those original photos from the WPA...

Since I model Glacier Park/Marias Pass, I need all people.  People who constructed the railroad where immigrants from all over the planet.  People who live and work and visit around this area today are from everywhere--literally.  There is no where I have ever been with people speaking in so many languages.  That is just one of the numerous reasons I love this area.  The opportunity to interact with others from far away places.

Stereotype? You risk perpetuating a stereotype any time you include ANY person, white, black, Asian, Hispanic or whatever. What happened to the "my RR/ my rules" rule? 

When I saw this post, I immediatley thought of that photo even before i opened the post.  It is a colorized version of a photo that was taken at Gordonton, N.C. in 1939 by Dorthea Lang.  I think it would be a fantastic scene to model.  There are more great photos to inspire models at www.shorpy.com.  They have a collection of colorized photos and also a large amount of railroad-themed photos.

Since I like exploring Europe, I am always happy to see foreign tourists here in the U.S. (bringing our dollars back!).  Seen them at Yosemite and Yellowstone, but did not at Glacier on my few quick trips there.  Was distracted last trip by the fact Going to the Sun Highway was closed by snow, and I could not drive it.  Have seen German tourists, some of whom have an interest in the history of the Old West,  on back roads in Death Valley (a few died there a few years ago when they got away from their car in the summer....I have visited only in the winter...dunno how much warning tourists get about it being HOT there and elsewhere in the southwest in the summer)  My ethnic model population includes native Americans and a Hispanic priest around an adobe chapel and, otherwise, Caucasian ranchers and miners as found in the area circa 1940,

One of the better threads.

Both of my parents had black neighbors in their coal towns.  Coal region "patch" towns were diverse before "diversity" became cool. 

With that said, ethnicities and races do tend to congregate for whatever reason that may be.    Anthropolgical or sociological reasons maybe, but not our focus here.   

So having folks of color for a black country store,  church or a "grays" baseball game would be as appropriate as my intention to include several white ethnic churches in my coal region railroad as to replicate the many different "hunkies" (as they called us) who were imported to dig coal. 

Kelpieflyer posted:

When I saw this post, I immediatley thought of that photo even before i opened the post.  It is a colorized version of a photo that was taken at Gordonton, N.C. in 1939 by Dorthea Lang. 

I thought I recognized that style, but didn't want to write it as I didn't know for sure. If you look at enough of those WPA photos, you get to seeing the style of the person behind the lens.

Don't forget, back then, photographers usually want to art school before getting into photography as that was expected of photographers back then. I think that's why generally speaking you see so much better work, shot-for-shot, from before the days of instamatic film.

As for the scene itself, I remember a store just west of where I grew up, in North Florida. It was near the elementary school I went to and it looked almost exactly like the original posted photo here. It even had an ancient marking on the badly-rusted tin roof for directions to the airport, from back when it was common for markings for early pilots to be on building for them to look down on for navigation on long flights. It's long gone now and I so badly wish I'd gotten some photos of it...

Is that what those rooftop arrows were for? I never put two and two together. I figured it was just a portion of old ads and the buildings sides once held the rest or the other paint didn't hold up.

Yep, those were navigational aids for slow/low flying planes up to the 1940s. Those arrows (or dots) usually came with a letter or two to ID the airport the pilot was directed to. I can't tell you how that worked in regard to what markings meant what.

if the building was big enough, it said everything you needed:

Click here for a good article on this, that I just found online.

Yep , I remember the north arrow and letters in the circles on the other other arrow but don't recall Much else really. Neat !

Does anyone know why Vulcan no longer posts or what became of him?

coach joe posted:

Does anyone know why Vulcan no longer posts or what became of him?

I've wondered the same thing. He is the master of the style of modeling to which I aspire. He left very suddenly and without apparent warning. Hope it wasn't a health or personal issue. He occasionally had his differences with the management, but it never seemed overly seriously. 

Fred is fine.  Like me, he now posts on another site.

scale rail posted:

There are very few Black Folks available for our layouts. Wish someone would make a kit like this one. I remember many friendly people running these kind of stores in the South. How about it River Leaf Models? Don

I know I'm going to regret asking this, but what exactly makes "Black Folks" different from any other color folks, other than the hue of the paint the modeler chooses to apply to the figure?

I.e., what's stopping a modeler from buying unpainted figures and finishing them in a way that fits the scene he/she is building?

To my eye, the structure above looks like a "backwoods gas station/general store".  The figures that get placed around it are up to the modeler.

If I were to create a row of brownstones with stone stoops on a city street, I would try to make it look like some street from a vintage photo of Brooklyn or the Bronx.  If I put white kids out front playing stickball, it would be a one neighborhood.  If I took the exact same row of brownstones and put black kids out front playing stickball, it would be another neighborhood, perhaps a few blocks over.

I don't see that there's a shortage of rural gas station or brownstone apartment kits, nor of unpainted figures.  Am I missing something?

I am asking this sincerely, not rhetorically.

Steven J. Serenska 

Wouldn't be prototypical for this area which is 99.5%  caucasian like most of rural Pa. 

Steven the difference is Caucasian figures don't have to be repainted, ltoor And im not sure figures are made proportionately at the 17% mark that reflects reality.

Ethnic pride is something everyone tends to enjoy. Accepting and reveling in the pride of others is great fun, or failing to, the catch. The OP is right in wondering " if" because there is a gap in a hobby that prides itself on being prototypical while not producing the ethnic figures in numbers that are prototypical.

Jim in that era you might be right on the money percentage wise. In the early 1900 near 90% of AA lived in the south and 80% in rural areas. Over time many moved to northern cities to work the industries and so that's where they tended to live up north. Including your state, so prototypicaly that's pretty much correct they number would be low. But that's far from right modeling other areas of rural America.

In Pa in 2000 it was closer to 95% white wnd it now seems to closer to 92% with an overall 62% increase in rural AA population  in your state in just the last ten years alone. It's taken near forty years affirmative action, and anti discrimination laws just to get that far but like I said, it's been getting better for minorities my whole life.

I'm not pointing fingers either , just at oher relevant numbers that I think speak volumes on the topic.

How many layouts have a near 17% AA pop. And 18% Hisp/Lat. too. Others..

I have two White guys.Santa and a milkman, one AA and five "1st Nation" all the rest are green

... Army men.

I was in Mexican town eating molé yesterday with a pal of Mexican decent (Aztec/ Spanish so Hispanic) And talking about Hispanic vs Latino and cultures around here in general. If anyone wants to be PC, Latino is male, Latina female, the new all gender inclusive is Latin@. the a and o together and he is saying it La-teen-at and I just looked the spelling up. (For description not including Euro Spanish decent or needing the Spanish  language, but focusing on Southern portions of the Americas, that's an ironic focus to me, but "whatever" )

I think your 17% number is high -do we have to have political correctness on our RR layouts now ??  I really don't need a lesson on  he various groups of Americans. Western Pa. has always been a collection of ethnic neighborhoods, my 'hood and schools were caucasion.  I was in athletics with blacks, served in the Army with some and worked in a black ghetto as a health inspector for two years. Tell me about it.  Actually, when I was young there seemed to be more tolerance for all ethnic groups than today. Today it is a political movement for power and all the evil that entails.   Make toy figures in proportions to the census makeup ??  That is ridiculous.  Make what the market buys.  Toy trains aren't a black thing.  I also think some of your stats are  skewed as far as populations.  This is a hobby, not a civics lesson in political correctness.

Sorry Jim, I thought it was interesting is all. I really didn't even know if your stereotypical comment u began with was made defensively or from neutral observation, or if it was delivered with prejudices. Your race ; a mystery.

I thought the number you stated was a bit off and I was curious as I lived in NE Ohio, and so grabbed some census numbers I found interesting and relayed a bit of my day I enjoyed that had a similar conversation at the forefront. I DIDNT want it to come off mean and though it was a partial reponse the whole post wasn't directed at You either. If the shoe doesn't fit don't wear it (you've tossed it aside and made sure the stench isnt associated nicely)

If being prototypical is the desire and includes a layout scene the discussion  is on topic IMO. But as stated, a layout is only bound by the owners rules.

As far as PC goes, that's politeness for strangers most of the time IMO anyhow. The things my circles said to each other were far from it but it's OK, for US the love is there. I also feel I've had a unique experience or two living two sides off the roll of the skin dice also, so I brought it up as points to ponder.

Maybe model RRs aren't something that appeals to blacks in general, or maybe that's regional? I can think of three guys here that I know set up the Christmas train, but no layouts. ??? (maybe we can get it on the census ballot lol.) but it could be because for generations the marketing hasn't been aimed at the demographic much??? The financial splits of previous generations have to have had an impact too. All I know for sure is, being left out or picked on doesn't feel great, I'm sorry and ashamed you felt that too.

Williamsburg Pete, which site is Vulcan posting on now and is he still using Vulcan?  I would like to see what he is up to. I was always amazed by his work

Vulcan says 'hello' to all who remember him here.  He is doing well!  He was/is a great source of inspiration with unmatched talent.  

On a similar note, why do they  make white figures of railroad porters? Every vintage photo i have seen shows black men working as porters.  I have painted the skin of my porters brown, to show this.  These make up the only AAs on my layout.  If I were AA, Im sure I would paint the majority of my figures brown-skinned.  

I, too, would love to have a hint or two as to where Vulcan's work might be seen these days. I have put some effort into Googling, but so far without success.