Most of the photos on this site were extracted from reference images (high-resolution tiffs, 20 to 200 megabytes in size) from the Library of Congress research archive. (To query the database click here.) Many were digitized by LOC contractors using a Sinar studio back. They are adjusted by your webmaster for contrast and color in Photoshop before being downsized and turned into the jpegs you see here.

Slum Kids-II (Colorized) from Shorpy's files.
April 1940. Dubuque, Iowa. "Children who live in the slums." Our second look at this towheaded twosome, a sort of proto-Opie and his sister. 35mm nitrate negative by John Vachon for the Farm Security Administration. View full size
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