May 1941. Music-making in the convict camp at Greene County, Georgia. Medium-format nitrate negative by Jack Delano. View full size. The guitarist, one Shorpy reader points out, is bluesman Buddy Moss.

April 1941. "Prosperous Chicagoan spends evening at home." View full size. Medium-format safety negative by Russell Lee. A few Shorpy readers have identified this as bluesman Big Joe Turner.

May 1910. Wilmington, Delaware. Richard Pierce, 723 Walnut Street. Fourteen years of age. Western Union Telegraph Messenger No. 2. Nine months in service. Works from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Smokes. Visits houses of prostitution. Investigator, Edward F. Brown. View full size. Photo and caption by Lewis Wickes Hine.

May 1940. "Young Negro farm laborer. Stem, North Carolina." View full size. 35mm nitrate negative by Jack Delano for the Farm Security Administration.

Welcome to the first annual Shorpy Top 20 New Year's Eve Image Countdown, where we recap the year's most popular posts based on number of reads. You can keep track as the evening progresses on the grid below. (We'll get to the Top 10 starting around 11 p.m. Eastern Time.) And the No. 1 post of 2007, with 104,800 reads: A screen grab of  . . .  The Beaver Letter! Whew. Well that was fun but exhausting. Thanks to everyone for making this a super first year for Shorpy!

The ranking grid and read numbers reflect picture standings as of 4 p.m. Eastern time on December 31, 2007. View counts rounded to the nearest whatever.

No. 1: The Beaver Letter, 1958 (104,800 reads)
No. 2: Pie Town Dugout, 1940 (89,800 reads)
No. 3: Weeki Wachee Mermaid, 1947 (85,500 reads)
No. 4: Brooklyn Pin Boys, 1910 (84,700 reads)
No. 5: Inter-City Beauties, 1927 (73,200 reads)
No. 6: Pageant of Pulchritude II, 1928 (37,300 reads)
No. 7: Beach Policeman, 1922 (37,100 reads)
No. 8: Mr. 535-07-5248 and Wife, 1939 (36,800 reads)
No. 9: Custer Car, 1924 (24,700 reads)
No. 10: Carina Nebula (20,935 reads)
No. 11: Chicago & North Western Locomotive Shops, 1942 (20,750 reads)
No. 12: 1951 Oldsmobile Final Assembly (18,290 reads)
No. 13: Flying Fortress, 1942 (18,270 reads)
No. 14: Pageant of Pulchritude, 1928 (18,200 reads)
No. 15: The Virtual Buick, 1953 (17,300 reads)
No. 16: Carnival Ride From Hell, 1911 (16,600 reads)
No. 17: Hi-Fi Boombox, 1954 (15,000 reads)
No. 18: Bathing Girl Parade, 1920 (14,900 reads)
No. 19: Migrant Mother, 1936 (14,800 reads)
No. 20: Manhattan skyline in 1901 (14,500 reads)

June 1939. Tygart Valley, West Virginia. Homesteaders' daughters in a potato field. View full size. 35mm nitrate negative by John Vachon for the Farm Security Administration. File this under "1970s album covers that never were."

October 1939. Western Pacific tracks through the unclaimed desert of northern Oregon, 10 miles from the railroad station at Irrigon. View full size. 4x5 nitrate negative by Dorothea Lange for the Farm Security Administration.