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.

June 1942. "Combustion Engineering Co., Chattanooga, Tennessee. Welder making boilers for a ship." A definite 1950s sci-fi vibe here. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Alfred Palmer, Office of War Information. View full size.
This is probably a woman welding. With most of "our boys" overseas, the ladies picked up the slack and did and admirable job of it!
[The workers in this series of Combustion Engineering photos by Alfred Palmer are all big burly men. - Dave]
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