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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]
"Sidney Lust girls." Circa 1919, two of Washington, D.C., movie theater owner Sidney Lust's chorus girls, seen earlier out of costume. National Photo Company Collection glass negative, Library of Congress. View full size.
Great Baltimore Fire of 1904. "Liberty & Lombard Streets, southwest limit of fire." National Photo Company Collection glass negative. View full size.
December 17, 1924. Washington, D.C. "Auto safety device demonstration. Inspector Albert Headley." National Photo glass negative. View full size.
Market Street at Eighth in Philadelphia circa 1905, with the Lit Brothers building at right. Detroit Publishing Company glass negative. View full size.
A friend is having me scan some of her family photos, and I fell in love with this Kodachrome slide; she gave me permission to post it to Shorpy. It's her sister and their great-grandfather on his farm in Sabattus, Maine, in 1964. View full size.
"Capt. Hottel, guard, George Washington U., Class of 1924." Guy Hottel, captain of the Hatchetites. National Photo Co. glass negative. View full size. In 1950, Guy, a special agent in charge of the FBI's Washington field office, sent J. Edgar Hoover a memo regarding UFOs ("flying saucers, information concerning").
Detroit, July 1942. "Looking down on a parking lot from the rear of the Fisher Building." 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Arthur Siegel. View full size.
November 1942. Bingham Canyon, Utah. "View of the Utah Copper Company open-pit mine works at Carr Fork, as seen from the railroad." Note the ore cars on the tracks into the pit. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Andreas Feininger for the Office of War Information. Library of Congress. View full size.
c.1920, in the vicinity of Merced Falls, Calif. My mother's older sister and her car. Maybe someone here can identify it. From original 116 negative. View full size.
Undated, probably early 1940s photo of the shipping department at Macy's in New York. Reverse says "Wide World Photo." View full size.
1864. "Bermuda Hundred, Virginia. Photographer [possibly Mathew Brady, next to the horse] at Butler's signal tower, Cobb's Hill, Appomattox River." Note the cloth-draped darkroom and developing chemicals in bottles on the grass. Wet plate glass negative, half of stereo pair. View full size.
"Filling station, 17th & L." The Washington Accessories Co. service station under construction at 1703 L Street N.W. in early 1922 next to the Stoneleigh Garage. National Photo Company Collection glass negative. View full size.
May 1963. This is a gag shot; the "gag," such as it is, being that I'm supposedly baffled by a comic strip character. I'd been a Pogo fan for as long as I could remember (note how worn that copy is) and by then I was, of course, well aware that Walt Kelly's strip had meanings on more than one level. I still have all our books, Dell comics and even the original "I Go Pogo" campaign button that I vaguely remember picking up at the San Francisco Chronicle building in 1952, when I was 6. But seriously, I posted this because of the nifty clock radio. And I want to assure all the Shorpy skeptics out there that, in the interests of historical authenticity, I did not Photoshop out any of my zits. Ektachrome-X slide.
"Baltimore Fire, 1904. Church of the Messiah in flames." Our fourth photo from the Great Fire of 1904. National Photo Company glass negative. View full size.
"Bethesda, Maryland. Chevy Chase School, 1935." We backspace to another typing class. National Photo Company Collection safety negative. View full size.