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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]
1865. "Charleston, South Carolina. Breach patched with gabions on the north wall of Fort Sumter." From photographs of the Federal Navy, and seaborne expeditions against the Atlantic Coast of the Confederacy, 1863-1865. Wet collodion glass plate negative, right half of stereograph pair, from Civil War photographs compiled by Hirst Milhollen and Donald Mugridge. View full size.
"Montreal July 1954. Night on Catherine and Peel Streets." From Set 3 of found 35mm Kodachrome slides. View full size. I don't know about you, but I'm heading right over to the Indian Room to meet Jack Delano for cocktails.
April 1941. South Side Chicago. "Barber shop in the Black Belt." View full size. 35mm safety negative by Edwin Rosskam for the Farm Security Administration.
January 1908. "Snow storm, 14th Street, New York City." View full size. Glass negative, George Grantham Bain Collection. Lots of interesting signs in this one.
June 26, 1922. "Laura Lyle, Olive Robinson, Virginia Roche, Ruth O'Brien" aboard a ship. 5x7 glass negative, George Grantham Bain Collection. View full size.
April 1941. Washday in South Side Chicago. 35mm safety negative by Russell Lee for the Resettlement Administration. View full size.
December 1941. Goodyear Aircraft, Akron, Ohio. "Formerly an aircraft dock, this huge building, thought to be the largest in the world with no interior supports, is now the scene of many busy shops turning out aircraft parts. Either new housing close to the plant or vastly improved public transportation will eventually have to be supplied, for the tires on the cars of the workers, and perhaps even the cars themselves, will in many instances give in before the end of the present emergency." View full size. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Alfred Palmer.
October 23, 1914. "Clark." I just know there's someone out there who can tell us exactly who this is. View full size. 5x7 glass negative, George Grantham Bain Collection. [Update: Clark (actually Clarke) was, in the words of the New York Times, the "brilliant freshman quarterback" who played for Brown University against Cornell at the Polo Grounds on October 24, 1914. No first name though.]
February 1942. "Aluminum casting. A woman's place in this large Midwest aluminum factory is on the inspection line. She's giving a final checkup on these aluminum pistons which are destined for use by America's armed forces. Destination of the finished aluminum products is kept secret. They'll probably end up as jeep or airplane engine parts. Aluminum Industries Inc., Cincinnati." Medium format nitrate negative by Alfred Palmer for the OWI. View full size.
May 1940. "Street in oldest part of town which is being torn down. St. Louis, Missouri." View full size. 35mm nitrate negative by John Vachon for the FSA.
"Convention in session, 3 a.m." Supporters of House Speaker Champ Clark for president at the Democratic nominating convention in Baltimore, June 1912. View full size. 5x7 glass negative, George Grantham Bain Collection.
June 1942. "Kenneth C. Hall with his wife, Helen Louise, and daughter Peggy. Mr. Hall is a foreman in the hot rolling mill at the Reynolds Metals Company, an aluminum plant using Tennessee Valley Authority electricity. He lives in this TVA defense house at Sheffield, Alabama." View full size. Medium format negative by Arthur Rothstein for the Office of War Information.
1941. Belt drive for the metal cutter at Gichner Iron Works in Washington, D.C. Photograph by Baker for the Office for Emergency Management. View full size.