Framed or unframed, desk size to sofa size, printed by us in Arizona and Alabama since 2007. Explore now.
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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]
"Beggar, New York City." Circa 1912. View full size. George Grantham Bain Collection. Note cryptic graffiti chalked on building.
Vanderbilt Cup Auto Race, Robertson in Locomobile on track. October 24, 1908. View full size. George Grantham Bain Collection.
"The Burning of the Call." The San Francisco Call newspaper building in flames after the April 18, 1906 earthquake. View full size. Pillsbury Picture Co.
Allan Pinkerton ("E.J. Allen") of the Secret Service on horseback. Antietam, Maryland, main eastern theater of the war, September-October 1862. Glass negative (wet collodion). View full size. Photograph by Alexander Gardner.
July 1863. Dead Confederate sharpshooter at the foot of Round Top. Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. View full size. Photograph by Alexander Gardner.
Deadwood, South Dakota, from Mrs. Livingston's Hill. View full size or zoom in. Circa 1888 photograph by John C.H. Grabill. Another Deadwood shot here.
A migrant mother, 32, who has seven hungry children, living in a tent camp in Nipomo, California. Photograph by Dorothea Lange, March 1936. View full size.
The mother in this photo is the famous subject of a Depression-era portrait known as "Migrant Mother." She came forward in the late 1970s and was revealed to be Florence Owens Thompson. She died in 1983. You can see the photo and read more here.
Shorpy is moving to a new server tonight, so there may be times when the site is unavailable. See you when we get back! 4x5 Kodachrome transparency of Civil Air Patrol plane (Stinson 10A) at Bar Harbor, Maine, by John Collier, June 1943. Full size. A couple more here and here.
" 'Safety first' is the motto of Miss Mary Jayne of Keith's circuit. Mary Jayne, seated in rocking chair with pistol strapped to her knee, claiming exemption from concealed weapon regulation by saying her thirty-two isn't a concealed weapon in these days of knee-length skirts." National Photo Company Collection, February 14, 1922. View full size. The Keith Circuit was a chain of vaudeville theaters that eventually transitioned to motion pictures.
Chicago & North Western RR worker putting the finishing touches on a rebuilt caboose on the rip tracks at Proviso Yard, Chicago. April 1943. View full size. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Jack Delano.
Celebration on Wall Street upon the news of Germany's surrender in World War I. November 1918. View full size. Photograph by W.L. Drummond.
U.S. Army Quartermaster's Department, Alexandria, Virginia. View full size. Albumen print from a photograph by Andrew J. Russell taken during the Civil War (1861-1865). Note the elaborate signal mast on the roof.
My dad's brother Charlie on a 1949 cruise to the Bahamas in the sailboat they built. View full size. 35mm Kodachrome by Marvin Hall.