Dinner at 7:10: The Tip Estes Family, Fowler, Indiana, 1937

The archive record keeps the whole evening in one sentence: “7:10 p.m. Tip Estes and family eating dinner. The day’s work has been finished. Tip Estes has washed up and dinner is served.”

Russell Lee photographed this Benton County farm family at the table in Fowler, Indiana, in March 1937 — chores done, hands washed, everybody in their place.

There is something rare in a record that bothers to note the exact minute: 7:10. The day’s work had a finishing time, and dinner had a starting time, and the photograph caught the moment the one turned into the other.

Source: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-USF34-010580-D

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