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.

Stair to attic from the second-floor hallway at Woodburn, a circa 1830 plantation house in South Carolina, before its restoration in 1960. View full size. Photograph by Jack Boucher, Historic American Buildings Survey.
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