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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]
1924. Montgomery County, Maryland. "Elks Outing, Glen Echo." View full size. 4x5 glass negative, National Photo Company Collection.
1928. Roller coaster at the Glen Echo amusement park in Montgomery County, Maryland. View full size. National Photo Company Collection.
April 1943. "Chicago & North Western R.R. Tracks leading into the freight house at Proviso yard. This is said to be the largest covered freight house in the world." View full size. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Jack Delano for the OWI.
August 1864. Petersburg, Virginia. "Military telegraph operators at headquarters." Photos from the main Eastern theater of war, the siege of Petersburg, June 1864-April 1865. Wet plate glass negative from Civil War photographs compiled by Milhollen and Mugridge. View full size.
1926 or 1927. Washington, D.C. "H.E.F. & lamb." Herbert E. French, the proprietor of National Photo. View full size. National Photo Company.
Summer 1939. Butte, Montana. "High school band parading up Montana street." View full size. 35mm nitrate negative by Arthur Rothstein for the FSA.
Circa 1952, possibly in Indiana. Another image from Set 2 of found 35mm Kodachromes. Note the Cadillac-inspired tacked-on tailfins on the Ford, which we'll tentatively identify as a 1950 Crestliner. View full size.
October 1908. Gastonia, North Carolina. Boy from Loray Mill. "Been at it right smart two years." View full size. Photograph by Lewis Wickes Hine.
April 1913. Lindale, Georgia. "Luther Dories. Been doffing some months in Spinning Room #2, Massachusetts Mills. Said 12 years old, but very doubtful. Father and brother work." View full size. Photograph by Lewis Wickes Hine.
Washington, D.C., 1926 or 1927. "Liberty Pie Company truck wreck." 4x5 glass negative, National Photo Company Collection. View full size.
1921. Washington, D.C. "Conrad Espew, George Washington University." 4x5 glass negative, National Photo Company Collection. View full size. Anyone out there have an old GW yearbook? I wonder if Espew is really anyone's last name.
May 1943. Pennsylvania R.R. iron ore docks, Cleveland. "After the ore is weighed in the Hulett unloader it is dropped in the waiting hopper cars below." 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Jack Delano for the OWI. View full size.
October 1913. Houston, Texas. "Jeff Miller. A young delivery boy for Magnolia Pharmacy. This is especially bad for him as he has recently returned from the Seabrook Reform School where he had spent a year. He would not tell me why he was sent there." View full size. Photograph and caption by Lewis Wickes Hine.
Washington, 1943. "United Nations Fight for Freedom: Colored, white and Chinese Boy Scouts in front of Capitol. They help out by delivering posters to help the war effort." View full size. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by John Rous for the Office of War Information. What photo expert out there can tell us about the numbers on these Kodachromes -- how and at what point in the manufacturing/ exposure/ developing process they were made, and what they signify.