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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]
MODEL PLAYGROUND IN COUNTRY. 1907. 5x7 glass negative, George Grantham Bain Collection. View full size | See every disturbing detail.
Spring 1943. Church at Cerros [Cerro], near Costilla, New Mexico. View full size. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by John Collier.
"New York City: Horse overcome by heat." Circa 1910. View full size. George Grantham Bain Collection. Hopefully the equine ambulance was on its way.
Night view of the Washington Street produce market, New York City, 1952. View full size. Photograph by Walter Albertin for the World Telegram & Sun.
The Hotel Astor on Times Square circa 1916. Note roof garden and, at lower right, the elaborate marquee for the film "Civilization." View full size. (George Grantham Bain Collection.) The building, at 1515 Broadway and West 44th Street, was demolished in 1967 and replaced by, in the words of one architecture critic, a "hideous tall office tower," 1 Astor Plaza, whose crownlike top is a familiar sight from across the Hudson River in New Jersey.
The Blue Bell diner at 619 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington. June 1948. View full size | Even larger | Read the menu. The Blue Bell had an upscale cousin on 10th Street, the Waffle Shop. Photograph by Theodor Horydczak.
October 1942. Experimental staff at the North American Aviation plant in Ingle- wood, Calif., observing wind tunnel tests on a model of the B-25 ("Billy Mitchell") bomber. View full size. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Alfred Palmer.
A homemade swimming pool for steelworkers' children in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Photograph by Arthur Rothstein, July, 1938. View full size.
The American minstrel performer Japanese Tommy, aka Thomas Dilward, circa 1860. Brady-Handy Photograph Collection. View large as life.
"See what Prince will do for me." Prince Albert, Ida Cuthbertson's "famous educated horse." Brown Studio, Riverside, circa 1909. View full size.
June 1942. Working on power transmission and utility lines near the TVA hydro- electric plant at Chickamauga Dam or Douglas Dam, Tennessee. View full size. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Alfred Palmer, Office of War Information.
Bermuda Hundred, Virginia. Signal tower on left of the line near the Appomattox River. Photograph from the main eastern theater of war, the Army of the James, June 1864-April 1865. Wet collodion glass plate. View full size | Even larger. Signal towers, employed by both the Confederate and Union armies during the Civil War to transmit coded messages, used flags by day and torches by night.
New York, November 13, 1909. "Irish wrestler Pat Connelly." 8x10 glass negative, George Grantham Bain Collection. View full size.