August 1942. Naval Air Base at Corpus Christi, Texas. Jesse Rhodes Waller, aviation ordnance mate third class, tries out a 30-caliber machine gun he has just installed in a Navy plane. View full size. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Howard Hollem for the Office of War Information.

Noon, August 1908. "Young People in an Indianapolis Cotton Mill." Uncharacteristically happy photograph by Lewis Wickes Hine, who generally seemed to prefer that his subjects scowl for the camera. View full size.

December 1943. Lynn Massman and her son Joey at the United Nations service center nursery in Washington, D.C. View full size. Medium-format safety negative by Esther Bubley for the Office of War Information.

February 1942. The fiddler Nathan Drake at the Farm Security Administration's Mercer Evans relocation camp in Weslaco, Texas. View full size. Medium format safety negative by Arthur Rothstein for the FSA.

November 1940. "Living room in farm home of John Frost, part owner of 135 acres of semi-marginal land in Tehama County, California. He raises turkeys, hogs and dairy cattle." We met the girl and her dad last week, listening to the radio. Medium format negative by Russell Lee for the FSA. View full size.

"Soldiers in full field equipment learning the 'chinpull' method of saving men from drowning" circa 1942. American Red Cross archives. View full size.

April 1940. "Business section of Dubuque, Iowa. The rich live in houses on the cliffs seen in background." View full size. 35mm negative by John Vachon.

August 1942. "Cadet L. Deitz at the Naval Air Base, Corpus Christi, Texas." 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Howard Hollem. View full size.

April 1942. "Sixty-year-old George Lane, former house painter, is a valuable worker in the De Land, Florida, industrial pool [of small machine shops]. He served in the last war with the British Army from Vimy Ridge to the Occupation. Two of his sons are in the American Army, one with the Air Corps in Australia. His daughter volunteered for the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps. Seven of his nephews are in the British Army. Using his old skill with the brush, he is now painting De Land pool products." View full size. Medium-format nitrate negative by Howard Hollem for the Office of War Information.

Summer 1938. "Tannery workers in Springfield, Ohio." 35mm nitrate negative by Ben Shahn for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.

A closeup of Caroline Atwater, seen earlier this week, in the doorway of her kitchen in Orange County, North Carolina. View full size. Medium-format nitrate negative by Dorothea Lange for the Farm Security Administration.

April 1865. "Burnt District, Richmond, Virginia. Ruins in the State Arsenal yard." View full size. Half of a wet-plate glass stereograph.

March 1936. "Heavy black clouds of dust rising over the Texas Panhandle." 35mm nitrate negative by Arthur Rothstein for the FSA. View full size.

July 16, 1917. An exciting game of "mumble-the-peg" at scout camp outside New York City. George Grantham Bain Collection. View full size.

April 1941. South Side Chicago boy. View full size. 35mm nitrate negative by Edwin Rosskam for the Farm Security Administration.