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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]
Washington, April 2, 1925. "Experiment at Gallaudet College by Professor R.H. Gault." View full size. National Photo Company Collection glass negative.
Washington circa 1925. The second and final photo from the archive labeled "Kaspar Handley" (i.e., the Hendley-Kaspar School of Musical Education). Whatever Lucia Hendley is doing here I have a feeling it involves the Very Latest Methods. National Photo Company Collection glass negative. View full size.
Washington, D.C., circa 1925. Library of Congress transcription of the label on this negative: "Kaspar Handley," i.e. the Hendley-Kaspar music school run by Lucia Hendley and Henry Kaspar. View full size. National Photo glass negative.
Washington, D.C., vicinity circa 1928. "Southern Railway. Ladies' car," reserved for women and their escorts. National Photo glass negative. View full size.
Washington, D.C., circa 1928. "Hedges & Middleton. Sullivan & Helan Co." Service station at Sixth Street and Rhode Island Avenue N.W. Note the traffic light with bottom lens labeled "GO." View full size. National Photo Co. glass negative.
Someone took this Ektachrome slide of my uncle in his newly-acquired MG around 1955, in front of his San Francisco home (on the right). Why the Caddy limo is there, or if it's connected with the event, I don't know; based on the front fender trim, I think it's a '54. Appears to be a registration certificate taped inside the windshield. I presume it's parked facing the wrong way on the street because Cadillac limos get to do that. Next-door neighbor kid seems entranced by the scene, as I would have been. View full size.
New York. March 16, 1918. "Florence A. Young and Chas. P. Rigo." 5x7 glass negative, George Grantham Bain Collection. View full size.
Washington, D.C., circa 1935. "Interior of D.G.S. Store, 3300 Connecticut Avenue, Cathedral Mansions." An interesting look at some Birdseye Packing Co. "Frosted Foods." View full size. 8x10 safety negative, National Photo Co. Note that by 1935, National Photo has made the jump from glass to film as a recording medium. Resulting in a more modern, contrastier look but a little less detail.
Washington, D.C., circa 1924. "Cathedral Mansions drug store." View full size. National Photo Company Collection glass negative, Library of Congress.
August 2, 1926. "Miss Marjorie Joesting." Marjorie, the future Mrs. Arthur Lange, was both Miss Washington, D.C., and a Miss America runner-up at Atlantic City in 1926. National Photo Company Collection glass negative. View full size.
Washington circa 1924. Living room of a model apartment at Cathedral Mansions. Take that, Ikea! View full size. National Photo Company glass negative.
Washington circa 1924. "Cathedral Mansions Grocery." The market at Cathedral Mansions, a multistory apartment complex on Connecticut Avenue that also had its own bakery and drugstore. View full size. National Photo glass negative.
Circa 1924, "Metropolitan Methodist Church, C Street, Washington, D.C." And the Ford building next door. National Photo Company glass negative. View full size. The church, at C Street NW and John Marshall Place, was abandoned and razed after the congregation moved to its Nebraska Avenue location in the 1930s. The 1905 Ford Motor Co. building on Pennsylvania Avenue was torn down in 1980.
Washington, January 1925. "Bureau of Identification, Justice Department." Files of the National Bureau of Criminal Identification, forerunner of today's FBI. National Photo Company Collection glass negative. View full size.