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.

Colorized from Shorpy's files. November 1938. "Kern County, California. Cotton picker's child listening to speeches of organizer at strike meeting to raise wages from 75 cents to 90 cents a hundred pounds. Strike unsuccessful." Photo by Dorothea Lange. View full size.
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