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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]
January 1963. "Lincoln convertible on snow road." From somewhere in the Sierras comes this Agfachrome of Don Cox's red 1957 Lincoln Premiere against a backdrop of snow white and sky blue. Happy Fourth of July from Shorpy! View full size.
September 1940. Saint Mary's County, Maryland. "Mrs. Eugene Smith, FSA borrower, canning string beans." Photo by John Vachon for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.
November 1940. "Daughter of day laborer. Scioto Marshes, Hardin County, Ohio. Photos show poorly housed and poorly clad workers. Wooden shacks." Medium format acetate negative by John Vachon for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.
March 1941. Norfolk, Virginia. "Traffic on Bainbridge Boulevard." Medium format acetate negative by John Vachon for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.
March 1941. Norfolk, Virginia. "A miscellany of pictures in overcrowded Navy towns. Corridor in public school." Medium format acetate negative by John Vachon. View full size.
April 1941. "Mr. J. H. Parham, barber and notary public, in his shop in Centralhatchee, Heard County, Georgia." Photo by Jack Delano for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.
Dearborn, Michigan. "1963 Ford Fairlane two-door sedan." Color transparency from the Ford Motor Co. photographic archive. View full size.
June 13, 1962. "Helene Alexander at her home in Palm Springs, California, with Mrs. Zeppo Marx." Kodachrome by Cal Bernstein for the Look magazine assignment "Promised land for millions of migrating Americans: California's way-out way of life." View full size.
April 1936. "Housing conditions in crowded parts of Milwaukee. Housing under the Wisconsin Avenue viaduct." Photo by Carl Mydans for the Resettlement Administration. View full size.
January 1911. South Pittston, Pennsylvania. "A view of the Pennsylvania Breaker. 'Breaker boys' remove rocks and other debris from the coal by hand as it passes beneath them. The dust is so dense at times as to obscure the view and penetrates the utmost recesses of the boys' lungs." Photo by Lewis Wickes Hine. View full size.
From the 1906 book The Bitter Cry of the Children by labor reformer John Spargo:
Work in the coal breakers is exceedingly hard and dangerous. Crouched over the chutes, the boys sit hour after hour, picking out the pieces of slate and other refuse from the coal as it rushes past to the washers. From the cramped position they have to assume, most of them become more or less deformed and bent-backed like old men. When a boy has been working for some time and begins to get round-shouldered, his fellows say that “He’s got his boy to carry round wherever he goes.”
January 1911. "Group of boys working in No. 9 Breaker. Pennsylvania Coal Co., Hughestown Borough, Pittston, Pennsylvania. Smallest is Sam Belloma, Pine Street." Photograph by Lewis Wickes Hine for the National Child Labor Committee. View full size.
August 6, 1917. "10 year old picker on Gildersleeve Tobacco Farm. Gildersleeve, Connecticut." Photo by Lewis Wickes Hine for the National Child Labor Committee. View full size.
April 1936. "Housing conditions in crowded parts of Milwaukee. Housing under the Wisconsin Avenue viaduct." Another look at the F. Knop Tavern, last seen here. Nitrate negative by Carl Mydans for the Resettlement Administration. View full size.
September 1941. "Transport truck in service station. Scottsbluff, Nebraska." Medium format acetate negative by Marion Post Wolcott for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.
April 1936. "Rear of houses at 711 West State Street. Milwaukee Vocational School in background." Photo by Carl Mydans for the Resettlement Administration. View full size.