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.

October 1941. Oswego, New York. "French-Canadian stevedore at port of Oswego, point of entry for Great Lakes shipping." Medium-format nitrate negative by John Collier for the Resettlement Administration. View full size.
You can bet it was a "dirty" joke. The Stevedores I've met seem to specialize in 'em.
Today's Top 5