December 1942. A winter afternoon in the North Proviso yardmaster's office, Chicago & North Western Railroad. View full size. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Jack Delano. Click here for a closeup of the poster on the wall.

August 1940. Little girl at the Reitz farm near Falls Creek, Pennsylvania, washing eggs to be sold at Tri-County Farmers Co-op Market at Du Bois. View full size. 3¼ inch safety negative by Jack Delano, Farm Security Administration.

1950. Pete's Bar at Washington Market in Lower Manhattan. Photo by Al Aumuller, New York World-Telegram & Sun. View full size.

June 1943. Vendor at the Fulton Fish Market in New York City. View full size. Photograph by the legendary Gordon Parks, back when he was just starting out.

Part of Washington Market in 1956, looking north along Washington Street at Fulton Street in Lower Manhattan. The market, which began as an open-air bazaar in 1812, was renovated with the facade seen here in 1940 and razed in 1967 to make way for the World Trade Center. With more than 800 vendors, it was for many years the largest wholesale produce market in the United States. Photo by Fred Palumbo, New York World-Telegram & Sun. View full size.

Interior retail stalls at Washington Market in New York City in 1917. New York Word-Telegram & Sun Newspaper Collection. View full size.

March 22, 1948. The New York City Public Market at First Avenue and East 73rd Street (?), an example of the food market in transition. A typical 19th-century market would have many separate vendors in an open-air space like a town square. By the early 1900s the open-air space had given way to separate vendors under a large shed roof with no walls, often near the train station. Here in 1948 the space is enclosed, but still with separate vendors (greengrocer, butcher, dry goods, fishmonger etc.). After the introduction of centralized distribution and self-service for the various product categories, the individual vendors fade from the scene and the market has a new name: "super-market," now spelled without the hyphen. View full size. 5x7 safety negative by Gottscho-Schleisner.

November 1908. "A typical Spinner" at Lancaster Cotton Mills in South Carolina. View full size. Photograph and caption by Lewis Wickes Hine.

The spirits do come back, if you stay for the second show. 1915 poster advertising an appearance by the magician Howard Thurston (1869-1936), the "King of Cards." Strobridge Lithography, Cincinnati & New York. View full size.

November 1908: Gastonia, North Carolina. Lacy, 12 years old, and Savannah, 11. Have worked two years. Father said "The little one is a crackerjack on spinnin', at least so the boss says. She ain't satisfied unless in the mill. The oldest one isn't so good at it. Not as quick." (Note the tense, serious looks on the younger. Older one more like a real girl.) View full size. Photo and caption by Lewis Wickes Hine.

1913 (?) poster advertising a Minneapolis appearance by Claude Alexander, one of the most famous (and wealthy) mentalists of his time. View full size.

March 1942. "George Carell's seven-year-old son George Jr. likes to watch his father produce essential war equipment in his Passaic, New Jersey, home workshop. Mr. Carell belongs to a subcontract pool organized by the Howe Machinery Company." View full size. 5x7 negative by Howard Liberman.

And who turned out the lights? A 1928 poster advertising the "brilliant psychic star" Newmann the Great. View full size. Standard Show Printers of St. Paul.

Way back when, the scariest day of the year was May 14. We're kicking off the Shorpy Halloween party with some of the spookiest posters you've even seen! This one's from 1935. View full size. Triangle Poster & Printing Co., Chicago.

January 1938. Bait seller in Key West, Florida. View full size. 3¼ x 4¼ nitrate negative by Arthur Rothstein for the Farm Security Administration.