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Vintage photos of:
Our holdings include hundreds of glass and film negatives/transparencies that we've scanned ourselves; in addition, many other photos on this site were extracted from reference images (high-resolution tiffs) in the Library of Congress research archive. (To query the database click here.) They are adjusted, restored and reworked by your webmaster in accordance with his aesthetic sensibilities before being downsized and turned into the jpegs you see here. All of these images (including "derivative works") are protected by copyright laws of the United States and other jurisdictions and may not be sold, reproduced or otherwise used for commercial purposes without permission.
[REV 25-NOV-2014]
Circa 1942 silkscreen poster by Louis Hirshman encouraging safe disposal of matches, showing stylized Japanese soldier standing behind a tree with a match, with the rising sun in the background. Federal Art Project / WPA War Services Project. View full size.
January 1911. A lonely job. Waiting all alone in the dark for a trip to come through. Willie Bryden, a nipper, lives at 164 Center St. in South Pittston. It was so damp that Willie said he had to be doctoring all the time for his cough. A short distance from here, the gas was pouring into the mine so rapidly that it made a great torch when the foreman lit it. Willie had been working here for four months, 500 feet down the shaft, and a quarter mile from there. (Shaft #6, Pennsylvania Coal Co.) Walls have been whitewashed to make it lighter. January 16, I found Willie at home sick. His mother admitted that he is only 13; will be 14 next July. Said that 4 months ago the mine boss told the father to take Willie to work, and that they obtained the certificate from Squire Barrett. (The only thing the Squire could do was to make Willie out to be 16 yrs old.) Willie's father and brother are miners and the home is that of a frugal German family. View full size. Photograph (5x7 glass negative) and caption by Lewis Wickes Hine.
January 1911. Willie Bryden holding the door open while a trip goes through. View full size. Photograph by Lewis Wickes Hine.
Shaft No. 6 workers at the Pennsylvania Coal Company's South Pittston mine. January 1911. View full size. Photograph by Lewis Wickes Hine.
December 1910 or January 1911. At the close of the day, just up from the shaft at the Pennsylvania Coal Company's South Pittston mine. Smallest boy, next to right hand end, is a nipper. On his right is Arthur, a driver. Joe on Arthur's right is a nipper. Frank, boy at left, is a nipper, works a mile underground from the shaft, which is 5000 feet down. View full size. Photograph by Lewis Wickes Hine.
January 1911. Mule power and motor power. A young driver in Shaft #6, Pennsylvania Coal Company mine at Pittston. View full size. 5x7 glass negative by Lewis Wickes Hine. National Child Labor Committee Collection.
That Son-In-Law of Pa's by Charles H. Wellington. Published May 1, 1918. View full comic. You can find more in our new comics section and don't forget to subscribe to the comics RSS feed.
October 1938. Shelbyville, Indiana. Hearse meeting casket at railroad station. View full size. 35mm nitrate negative by John Vachon.
September 1939. Children's lunch pails wait for their owners in a rural Wisconsin schoolhouse. View full size. Photograph by John Vachon.
September 1939. "Rural schoolroom in Wisconsin." View full size. 35mm nitrate negative by John Vachon for the Farm Security Administration.
April 1938. Store in Halifax, North Carolina, with signs advertising carbonated beverages and patent medicines. View full size. Photograph by John Vachon.
"The Fly in the Ointment," dated May 22, 1920. Even bigger laffs. More Shorpy funnies on the Comics Page. Subscribe to the Shorpy Comics Feed!
May 1939. Coal miner's son in Kempton, West Virginia. View full size. 35mm nitrate negative by John Vachon, Farm Security Administration.
Lady resident of a St. Paul rooming house. September 1939. View full size. 35mm nitrate negative by by John Vachon, Farm Security Administration.
October 1938. Farm wife and baby waiting in the car while her husband attends the auction. Oskaloosa, Kansas. View full size. Photograph by John Vachon.