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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]
1926. Washington, D.C. Photographing the photographing of giraffes at the National Zoo. View full size. 4x5 glass negative, National Photo Company.
February 1939. Calipatria, Imperial Valley. Car on siding across tracks from pea packing plant. Twenty-five year old itinerant, originally from Oregon. "On the road eight years, all over the country, every state in the union, back and forth, pick up a job here and there, traveling all the time." View full size. Medium format nitrate negative by Dorothea Lange for the Farm Security Administration.
October 4, 1923. Washington, D.C. Danish athletes at the Pension Office Building. View full size | Rear view. 5x7 glass negative, National Photo Company.
February 1943. "Mrs. Mary Betchner measuring 105mm howitzers at the Milwaukee, Wisconsin, plant of the Chain Belt Company. Her son is in the Army; her husband and daughter are in war work." View full size. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Howard Hollem for the Office of War Information.
December 1943. "Hugh and Lynn Massman sightseeing on their first day in Washington. Their baby is being taken care of in the nursery at the United Nations service center." Photo: Esther Bubley, Office of War Information. View full size
1923. Assistant Postmaster General John Bartlett's car in Washington after an accident. Bartlett, a former governor of New Hampshire, survived. Details of the wreck, unfortunately, did not. View full size. National Photo Co. Collection.
May 1915. Sacramento, California. "Freddie Kafer, a very immature little newsie selling Saturday Evening Posts and newspapers at the entrance to the State Capitol. He did not know his age, nor much of anything else. He was said to be 5 or 6 years old. Nearby I found Jack, who said he was 8 years old, and who was carrying a bag full of Saturday Evening Posts, which weighed nearly half of his own weight. The bag weighed 24 pounds, and he weighed only 55. He carried this bag for several blocks to the [street]car. Said he was taking them home." Photograph and caption by Lewis Wickes Hine. View full size.
Broadway actress Olga Cook, leading woman of the popular operetta "Blossom Time," in Washington in 1923. View full size. National Photo Company.
1923. "Children of the famous snow baby. Edward Stafford Jr. and Peary Stafford, ages 4 and 2, grandchildren of the late Admiral Peary, discoverer of the North Pole. Their mother, Mrs. Edward Stafford, Peary's daughter, was born in the Arctic." View full size. National Photo Company Collection.
"Auto Wreck, 1923." Another Washington, D.C., vehicular mishap, this time at the Library of Congress. View full size. National Photo Company Collection.
July 30, 1923. Washington, D.C. A closeup from this morning's post of a wrecked car in the water. View full size. National Photo Co. glass negative.