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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 1905. "Children's Day May pole dance, Central Park, New York." 8x6 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size.
"40 cents no less."
June 1937. "Packing company strike. Cambridge, Maryland." Medium format negative by Arthur Rothstein, Farm Security Administration. View full size.
Washington, D.C., circa 1905. "A.C. Duganne, Technical High School." Track and field athlete Alfred C. "Duke" Duganne (1887-1964). 5x7 glass negative from the C.M. Bell portrait studio. View full size.
October 1942. "The careful hands of women are trained in precise aircraft engine installation duties at Douglas Aircraft Company, Long Beach, Calif." Kodachrome by Alfred Palmer, Office of War Information. View full size.
Washington, D.C., 1935. "NO CAPTION." Yet another nameless notable whose fame did not outlast her photo, and a reminder that, after we take that big black train from Union Station, 99.9 percent of us will eventually be completely and utterly forgotten. Harris & Ewing glass negative. View full size.
"Truck fire." A burned-out, watered-down International somewhere in Oregon. 4x5 inch acetate negative from the Shorpy News Photo Archive. View full size.
Manhattan circa 1910. "U.S. Custom House, New York, N.Y." The Alexander Hamilton Custom House, completed in 1907 at 1 Bowling Green. 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size.
2017 UPDATE: The man is fruit vendor Abe Cweren, who came to America from Poland in 1922. (Originally posted in 2007.)
May 1943. Houston, Texas. "Old house with fruit stand on Franklin Street." 4x5 inch Kodachrome transparency by John Vachon. View full size.
From circa 1956 and Anytown, USA, comes this captionless snap of two young ladies and a broiler tray of chops, next to a chair with our name on it. "Bone" appetit! 4x5 negative from the Shorpy News Photo Archive. View full size.
August 1942. "New York, New York. Waiting for trains at Pennsylvania Station." Photo by Marjory Collins for the Office of War Information. View full size.
June 1947. "Bodybuilder Gene Jantzen with wife Pat and 11-month-old son Kent." Photo by Stanley Kubrick for the Look magazine assignment "Strong Man's Family." Look Photograph Collection, Library of Congress. View full size.
This large-format Kodachrome by Louise Rosskam from 1942 first appeared on Shorpy some 20,000 posts ago, back in 2007.
1942. "Shulman's Market at N and Union Street S.W., Washington." View full size. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Louise Rosskam. Alternate view. In one of the many comments for this post, an alert FOS (Friend of Shorpy) points out the posters of Axis leaders Mussolini, Hitler and Admiral Yamamoto in the window. Along the bottom of each it says What do YOU say America?
San Francisco, 1922. "Marmon Roadster." With a few years and at least 3,000 miles on the clock. 5x7 glass negative by Christopher Helin. View full size.
September 1942. New York. "Second Avenue elevated railway at 14th Street in the midst of demolition." Photo by Marjory Collins. View full size.
October 1942. Passaic, N.J. "Factory owner Stanley A. Carlson, organizer of home machine shops for defense work. Carlson greeted by his family when he returns home." Photo by Marjory Collins, Office of War Information. View full size.