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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]
Georgetown, D.C., circa 1919. Our second look today at the morose moppets of the Lee School, one of whom seems to have a black eye. (Alternate title: "An Addams Family Education.") National Photo glass negative. View full size.
"William Lee's School, Georgetown," ca. 1919. Come closer, Mr. Photographer ... just a little closer ... National Photo Company glass negative. View full size.
1912. "Post Office Department. Hupp Auto Railway Service" (i.e., Hupp Automatic Mail Exchange, a system for transferring mail bags to and from a moving train). Harris & Ewing Collection glass negative. Note the two utility poles at left that have been scratched off the negative. View full size.
Washington, 1921 or 1922. "Mayer & Co." The Mayer furniture store in the Independent Order of Odd Fellows Temple at 419-423 Seventh Street N.W. between D and E. National Photo Company glass negative. View full size.
An uncaptioned circa 1915 photo showing the assembly of what look like locks or latches inscribed "U.S. MAIL." Like any progressive workplace, it's equipped with spittoons. Harris & Ewing Collection glass negative. View full size. Update: These are "L.A. locks" being assembled at the Post Office Department's Mail Equipment Shops, 2135 Fifth Street N.E. See the comments for details.
"District of Columbia. Traffic Stop and Go signs." Here we are again at 14th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, still waiting for the umbrella to change. After seven days (or is it 91 years) in this intersection, will these dapper gents in their snazzy Haynes roadster ever make it across? Tune in again tomorrow. And maybe the day after that. Harris & Ewing Collection glass negative. View full size.
1912. "Football, Costello; Georgetown-Virginia game." Costello seems to be having a pretty good time. Harris & Ewing Collection glass negative. View full size.
November 22, 1956, Larkspur, Calif. My brother reading The San Francisco News, at the time one of four dailies published in the city. He's home on Thanksgiving break from Cal Poly, where he'd just taken up the pipe. We're hosting a big crowd of relatives for dinner, hence the kitchen chair in the living room for overflow dinner seating. In the upper right corner on top of the TV cabinet I see my coin collection, ready for me to show off to my uncles and anybody else I can waylay. At the lower left, an item familiar to just about anybody who grew up in the 50s, an anodized aluminum tumbler. The magazine rack has a Coronet, a Life, undoubtedly some Saturday Evening Posts. To prove we're in California, a souvenir redwood wishing well coin bank on the window seat, along with my mother's African violets in their occasional living state. My sister snapped this Kodachrome slide with brother's Lordox. View full size.
Washington, D.C., 1913. "Dr. Freedman. Children cured by his cure." Another of the tots supposedly cured of tuberculosis by the turtle serum injections given by German physician Friedrich Franz Friedmann, whose "phthisis treatment" caused much excitement back in the days before antibiotics, when TB exacted a huge toll in lives and suffering. Harris & Ewing glass negative. View full size.
June 1911."Carrying-in" boy in Alexandria Glass Factory, Alexandria, Virginia. Works on day shift one week and night shift next week. Photograph and caption by Lewis Wickes Hine. View full size.
November 1908. Cotton mill workers at Daniel Manufacturing Co. in Lincolnton, North Carolina. Four doffers. Boy on left end (knee pants) said he had worked in the mills for seven years and some nights. At nights they work 12 hours, without any hour off for lunch. Eat when they can. Some of them "eat a-workin'." Photograph and caption by Lewis Wickes Hine. View full size.
Butte, Montana, in September 1942. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Russell Lee, Office of War Information. Anyone see their house here? View full size.
Washington, 1913. "Dr. Freedman -- Children cured by his cure." Regardless of what the story is here (and I have high hopes that we'll find out), this girl looks like a real piece of work. Harris & Ewing Collection glass negative. View full size.
1864. "Chattanooga, Tennessee. Adams Express office and the Crutchfield house with Cameron Hill in the distance." Photographer unknown. View full size.
1917. "District of Columbia traffic. Stop and Go signs." A very new-looking Haynes roadster in Washington crossing Pennsylvania Avenue at 14th Street N.W. Harris & Ewing Collection glass negative. View full size.