Framed or unframed, desk size to sofa size, printed by us in Arizona and Alabama since 2007. Explore now.
Shorpy is funded by you. Patreon contributors get an ad-free experience.
Learn more.
Feb. 19, 1949. "Lamont Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Long view, main corridor, third level." Gottscho-Schleisner photo. View full size.
On the far right behind some glass doors I spy my old friend the Card Catalog.
My friend Bob & I plus I imagine a few other young boys would at times scour the drawers for interesting and titillating sounding titles and of course go look at them since we had already seen all the National Geographics.
Another game we played was Blind Draw. Each would randomly open a drawer and and write down the Dewey Decimal Number. If the book was in the stacks you got two points and then the more interesting book would be worth three points. Loser would have to buy the Sno Balls at the corner candy store on the walk home.
One day I hit the jackpot with Nuts In May. A very witty book with one of the premises being the author was interviewed by Dr. Kinsey. Now for a pair of 12 year olds in 1952 that was pure gold.
I like to think that the lone electrical outlet on that pillar in the center of the photo powered a huge Xerox 914 copy machine in the sixties.
On Shorpy:
Today’s Top 5