San Francisco circa 1924. "Star Car Sedan at Star Motor Co., Van Ness Avenue." Demonstrating one way to get your Star on the Walk of Fame. 5x7 inch glass negative by that automotive impresario Christopher Helin. View full size.

Volusia County, Florida, circa 1897. "Picnic landing on the Tomoka." With much photographic equipment strewn about, and a proffering of pie. 8x10 inch glass negative by William Henry Jackson, Detroit Photographic Co. View full size.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, circa 1908. "The heart of Pittsburgh." Panorama made from four 8x10 inch glass negatives. Detroit Publishing Company. View full size.

1896. "Lightship Scotland." 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Photographic Company. View full size.

January 1943. Daytona Beach, Florida. "Bethune-Cookman College. Football practice." Photo by Gordon Parks, Office of War Information. View full size.

Here's a second look at my husband Peter's Rollfast Deluxe bike. Chenango Bridge, New York, 1959. Anscochrome slide. View full size.

November 1939. "The FSA county home supervisor helps Mrs. Dixon [last seen here] plan a practical way of managing her household. St. Charles County, Mo." Photo by Arthur Rothstein for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.

November 1939. "Former tiff miner, now blind, with son. Washington County, Missouri. Photographs show mining and miners of tiff, form of white lead used in paint. A dangerous occupation because tiff mines are never timbered and all mining is done by hand labor from crude holes in ground usually 10 to 15 feet deep." Photo by Arthur Rothstein, Farm Security Administration. View full size.

November 1939. "Mrs. Lawrence Corda, wife of tiff miner, with some of her 800 quarts of food canned under FSA supervision. Washington County, Missouri." Photo by Arthur Rothstein for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.

        Classified as a marmot, the groundhog is a member of the squirrel family, Sciuridae, within the order Rodentia. Also called a woodchuck, it is considered basically a giant North American ground squirrel. -- Encyclopaedia Britannica

This little fellow, snapped circa 1939 by Jack Allison for the Farm Security Admin­istration, didn't rate a caption, so we can't say for sure where he is other than his front porch. Whereas he used to live in a hole in the ground, his two-dimensional self now resides in the archives of the Library of Congress. View full size.

            " -- and where do you see yourself in five years?"

1942. "Salvage. Stacking chips in the game of war. Even better, if possible, than the individual citizen, American industry has learned to waste nothing. With every ounce of steel and steel scrap vital to the war, this employee of the Boston & Maine Railroad has been assigned the job of sorting steel washers. Here, as in all industry today, anything reusable is put back into service; the remainder becomes scrap to feed the nation's insatiable steel mills." 4x5 inch nitrate negative by Albert Freeman for the Office of War Information. View full size.

        UPDATE: The historian Joe Manning has more on the life of Otha Porter Martin here.

October 1908. "Tipple boy at the Turkey Knob coal mine in Macdonald, West Virginia." Says the LOC: "Patron identifies this as her grandfather, Otha Porter Martin, born July 3, 1897." Photograph by Lewis Wickes Hine. View full size.

October 1942. "Manpower, junior size. The charge of the scrap brigade in Roanoke, Virginia, includes such methods of collecting as this pony cart. The patriotic and energetic youngsters of the town are making an all-out effort to corner every available piece of scrap in the city, so that their soldier and sailor brothers will have the shells, guns, and tanks with which to beat the Axis." 4x5 inch nitrate negative by Valentino Sarra for the Office of War Information. View full size.

September 1942. "Automobile salvage. Automobile bodies are usually cut into four pieces so they can be readily loaded into a press for baling. The acetylene torch separates the lightweight body from the heavyweight steel frame of the car. Note: the auto has already been burned to remove all wooden parts, upholstery, oil, grease and other unusable and inflammable material." 4x5 nitrate negative by William Perlitch for the Office of War Information. View full size.

March 1940. "Stores on main street. Elko, Nevada." Medium format negative by Arthur Rothstein for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.