There is the joke about how the world used to be in black and white. It's not far from the truth. The image we have of the 30s, 40s, and 50s is largely a black and white image. Cushman's Kodachrome slides remind us that the world at that time was really in color. It's kind of a shock. This is a remarkable site. It promises to be even more remarkable when all his images are up.

Charles W. Cushman:
The Curiosity of a Man, the Pictures of a Lifetime

Indiana University will digitize and present on the World Wide Web 18,000 Kodachrome slides and black and white prints of an amateur photographer named Charles W. Cushman. Mr. Cushman lived from 1896-1972 and spent a good portion of his life photographing his travels in the United States and abroad. His legacy is a remarkable photographic document of American social history in the twentieth century. Where similar bodies of vernacular photography focus on specific subjects or geographic areas, often during narrow periods of time, Charles Cushman's photographs comprise an epic sweep covering a large portion of the United States (and to some extent other countries) over a sixty-year span.
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...Mr. Cushman began using Kodachrome film in 1938, only three years after its introduction on the market. He continued to photograph with it at least until 1967, perhaps as late as 1972, the year of his death. He photographed in color at a time when most professionals and amateurs were shooting in black and white. It is likely that many of his photographs are the only known records of some subjects. In most cases, they are probably the only color record and almost certainly the only color record to be preserved and documented so well.
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thanks to Spitting Image