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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]
December 1940. "Negro soldiers. Columbus, Georgia." Medium format acetate negative by John Vachon for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.
May 1939. "Gas station between Tulare and Fresno on U.S. 99." Medium format acetate negative by Dorothea Lange for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.
July 1939. "Children of May Avenue camp pumping water from thirty-foot well which supplies about a dozen families. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma." Photo by Russell Lee. View full size.
General caption: Photographs show exterior and interior of shacks, tents, other makeshift shelter in May Avenue camp, which is partially under bridge and adjacent to city dump and hog wallow. Squalor, filth, vermin in which poverty-stricken inhabitants dwell. Water supplied by shallow wells and water peddler. Piles of rubbish and debris in which children and adults have injured feet. Privies. Families eating food from vegetable dumps, packing houses and discarded from hospital. Children clothed in gunny sacks. Malnourished babies. Sick people. Cooking, washing, ironing, patching. Improvised chicken coop. Corn patch."
1904. Washington, D.C. "H.D. Watts, 6th Street." Proud alumnus of Maryland Agricultural College. 5x7 inch glass negative from the C.M. Bell portrait studio. View full size.
"Watts, Miss -- between February 1901 and December 1903." Portrait of a well-rounded ingenue. 5x7 glass negative from the C.M. Bell studio in Washington, D.C. View full size.
March 1941. "Negro family waiting for ride into town. Halifax County, Virginia." Medium format acetate negative by John Vachon for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.
November 1940. "Home supervisor examining canned goods of FSA rehabilitation borrower in food storage cave. Labette County, Kansas." Acetate negative by John Vachon. View full size.
January 1941. "Harrisonburg, Virginia." Braking at the door till someone lets it in. Medium format acetate negative by John Vachon for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.
March 1941. "Children of construction workers in trailer camp. Portsmouth, Virginia." Medium format acetate negative by John Vachon for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.
March 1941, somewhere in Virginia. An uncaptioned photo by John Vachon of Navy-town schoolboys shooting the breeze, possibly in Portsmouth. View full size.
March 1941. "Sailor's wife living in trailer camp near Navy yard. Portsmouth, Virginia." Medium format acetate negative by John Vachon for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.
Dayton, Ohio, 1904. "Tool room of the National Cash Register Co." A case study in belt-and-pulley power transmission. George R. Lawrence Co. photo. View full size.
May 1953. "Entertainer Gwen Verdon dressed in a costume as Eve and surrounded by apples." Color transparency from the Look magazine assignment "The New Eve." View full size.
June 1941. "Family of worker at General Electric plant in trailer home at FSA camp. Erie, Pennsylvania." Photo by John Vachon for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.
February 1952. "Actresses Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe on set and in costume for the film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes." Photo by Earl Theisen for Look magazine. View full size.