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- Which explains why...
- Paper drives
- Pregnant Marian
- Paper drive
- The 1942 scrap paper drives were very successful.
- Delivery Wagon
- All you need to make you Go
- All of That
- Egad
- Watch your step
- Baseball players or hoods?
- Still there
- Wrapped power pole
- Hollywood Bad Girl?
- Nonelectronic
- Wonderful talent
- A Bubbling Cup
- Knickers
- These fountains
- Germs? What Germs?
- Just Made It
- What's that guy doing?
- Long-lasting technology
- The only thing missing
- Not so easy on the eyes
- Lighting adjustment
- Cut and paste
- To the news
- Light fixture cages
- 67th Street
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About the Photos
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.
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Today's Top 5
Trainlight: 1943
Submitted by Dave on Tue, 03/04/2008 - 8:46pm.
March 1943. "Activity in the Santa Fe R.R. yard, Los Angeles, Calif. All switch lights, headlights and lamps have been shaded from above in accordance with blackout regulations. The heavy light streaks are caused by paths of locomotive headlights and the thin lines by lamps of switchmen working in the yard. Santa Fe R.R. trip." View full size. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Jack Delano, who seems to have been among the earliest photographers of light trails in color.
LA Blackout
Submitted by Anonymous Tipster on Wed, 03/05/2008 - 3:16am.
A Japanese sub shelled a pier at the Goleta oilfields near Santa Barbara just a few months after Pearl Harbor, so it was lights out after that. The cityglow on the horizon was like a neon sign saying "aim here" to any bad guys at sea.
Blackout lights
Submitted by en_dash on Wed, 03/05/2008 - 12:48am.
Weird to think there were blackout regulations in LA in 1943 ...
THE 100-YEAR-OLD PHOTO BLOG
Shorpy.com | History in HD is a vintage photo blog featuring thousands of high-definition images from the 1850s to 1950s. The site is named after Shorpy Higginbotham, a teenage coal miner who lived 100 years ago.
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Today's Top 5