October 1940. "Faro and Doris Caudill, homesteaders, Pie Town, New Mexico." Faro and Doris got divorced a couple years after this picture was taken; she ended up homesteading in Alaska. There is a book about her life called Pie Town Woman. Kodachrome by Russell Lee. View full size.

Filling station and garage at Pie Town, New Mexico. Photograph by Russell Lee. September 1940. View full size. "Original owner sold pies, hence the name 'Pie Town.'" Wikipedia says that person was Clyde Norman, who started a dehydrated apple business there in the 1920s. Pie Town hosts a Pie Festival in the fall; photographer Lee took dozens of pictures of the 1940 rodeo and barbecue, which we'll be posting. Here we can see details of the the 1940 fair, and that gas was 21 cents a gallon. (Goodbye everyone, I'm moving to Pie Town - Dave)

February 1939. "Child of migratory packinghouse workers. Belle Glade, Florida." View full size. 35mm nitrate negative by Marion Post Wolcott for the FSA.

Entrance to the Waffle Shop at 522 10th Street NW, Washington D.C. Circa 1950 photograph by Theodor Horydczak. View full size.

The Waffle Shop, 522 10th Street NW, Washington D.C. Circa 1950 photograph by Theodor Horydczak. View full size. The diner still exists but is about to close. This, kids, was the epitome of fast food. (McDonald's? Beh.)

"Mission where Elsie Sigel met her slayer." Photograph circa 1915. The body of the 19-year-old missionary, granddaughter of Civil War hero Franz Sigel, was found in 1909 bound in a trunk in her lover Leon Ling's fourth-floor apartment at 782 Eighth Avenue in New York, next to the Chinese restaurant where he was a waiter. Ling disappeared, and the crime remains officially unsolved. View full size. Read more about this notorious murder here (continued here). 8x10 glass negative, George Grantham Bain Collection.

"3 p.m. Some of the boys at a busy trolley junction in Jersey City. Three brothers, Salvatore, 9 yrs. (in front), Joseph, 11 yrs. (cripple), Lewis, 13 yrs. (between these two). 'We would be murdered if we shot craps.' Boy at left sold me pair of dice for 2 cents." November 1912. Photograph by Lewis Wickes Hine. View full size.

January 1943. "Indiana Harbor Belt R.R. switchman demonstrating signal with a 'fusee,' used at twilight and dawn when visibility is poor. This signal means 'back up.' Calumet City, Illinois." Kodachrome by Jack Delano. View full size.

Ayer Mill clock tower, Lawrence, Massachusetts. January 1941. View full size. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Jack Delano.

December 1942. Classification yard at the Chicago & Northwestern Proviso Yard, Chicago. View full size. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Jack Delano.

April 1943. "Illinois Central R.R. freight cars at the South Water Street freight terminal, Chicago. The C & O and Nickel Plate Railroads lease part of this terminal." 4x5 inch Kodachrome transparency by Jack Delano for the Office of War Information. View full size.

Tenement homeworker with clothing tags. Roxbury, Massachusetts. August 1912. Photograph by Lewis Wickes Hine. View full size. Homeworkers, often children, sewed tags onto finished garments or performed other piecework at home instead of going to school.

October 1908. "Boy Sweeper and Carding Machines, Lincoln Cotton Mills, Evansville, Indiana." Photograph by Lewis Wickes Hine. View full size.

"Bring out yer rats." Ferrets were used in turn of the century New York to track down rodents. Here is the result of one such hunt in 1908. You want to be dressed in a jacket and tie for this kind of work. From the George Grantham Bain Collection. View full size.

December 1940. "Secondhand plumbing store, Brockton, Mass." 35mm Kodachrome transparency by Jack Delano. View full size. As of 2007, Saba Mechanical Plumbing & Heating is still in business in Brockton, at an address on Linus Avenue.