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.

My grandparents, great aunt, aunts and uncles enjoying a watermelon feed. My grandfather, Charles J. Clarke, was the caretaker of the Clarkson Estate in Potsdam, New York, and he and his family occupied the caretaker's farmhouse on Clarkson Hill. An academic building of Clarkson University now occupies the location. View full size.
What a lovely window into their lives, it's like being there with them! I love informal intimate shots like these, a real snapshot of life back then, not posed or staged.
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