Most of the photos on this site were extracted from reference images (high-resolution tiffs, 20 to 200 megabytes in size) from the Library of Congress research archive. (To query the database click here.) Most were digitized by LOC contractors using a Sinar studio back. They are adjusted by your webmaster for contrast and color before being downsized and turned into the jpegs you see here.
Shorpy is an online archive of thousands of high-resolution photos from the 1850s to 1950s. Our namesake, Shorpy Higginbotham, was a teenage coal miner who lived 100 years ago.
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September 1911. Winchendon, Massachusetts. "Batiste Joseph. Doffer in Glenallen Mill. Father and mother said he is 12 years old, has been doffing all summer, will go to school. Query: Will he go to school? Another boy, 13 years old in this mill, said, 'I'll stay at work until they come after me.' Older sister and parents illiterate." Photo and caption by Lewis Wickes Hine. View full size.

"Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Treasury Department. Fire, February 21, 1916, from spontaneous combustion." Harris & Ewing. View full size.

Washington, D.C., 1923. "Opening of bathing beach." A diving platform in the Potomac Tidal Basin. National Photo Co. glass negative. View full size.

In answer to countless requests for photos of 13-year-old boys smoking pipes while driving the automobile ultimately to be called the Toyota, I hereby submit this 35mm Kodacolor negative my brother took in January 1960. Full disclosure: it's my brother's unlit pipe and I'm not driving. I'm in a parked 1960 Crown Custom at Hil Probert's Toyopet dealership in Larkspur, California. That's our house up the hill at the top right. Note the special bonus for fellow Shorpy obsolete car make aficionados. View full size.

Here's the companion photo to the 1963 road trip to Canada last seen here at the roadside breakfast picnic table. This time it's Mom's turn at the Coleman, but no note about which meal or where this was. Kodachrome slide. View full size.

Washington, D.C., circa 1923. "Sherman house, 300 block Third Street N.W." National Photo Company Collection glass negative. View full size.