Fruit jars being sterilized on old lady Graham's back fence in berry season. Near Conway, Arkansas. "We just gather and can peas, beans, berries, and sausage when we butcher the hogs in the winter. We put up seventy-five quarts of berries, sixty of beans, sixty of kraut, thirty of grapes and twenty of peaches. I swapped two bushels of grapes and got two bushels of peaches and I swapped one bushel of grapes for one bushel of apples" c1938 June. Dorothea Lange, photographer. (Library of Congress)
Do not attempt to sterilize your canning jars on a fence. I have always used the old boil ten minutes system, but apparently you can sterilize jars in the oven too. That seems like a great system to me because I always wind up scalding myself getting the jars out of the boiling water.
Oh, yeah, off topic, but only slightly:
Where did you find this photo? Do you know if there are any more pictures of Mrs. Graham. Sophia Graham was my grandfather’s great grandmother..I have seen the one picture of her on the front porch, but would like to see others that Mrs. Lange shot that day. I live just a few miles from where the photo was taken..thanks for any info you can give me
[...] Is this woman Sophia “Old Lady” Graham, owner of these sun-sterilized jars? [...]