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.

November 1910. Birmingham, Alabama. "John Tidwell, doffer in Avondale Mills." A closeup of the boy seen earlier today, this image was extracted from a scan of the original 5x7 glass negative, as opposed to the print used for the group shot. View full size. From a photograph by Lewis Wickes Hine.
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