Our holdings include hundreds of glass and film negatives/transparencies that we've scanned ourselves; in addition, many other photos on this site were extracted from reference images (high-resolution tiffs) in the Library of Congress research archive. (To query the database click here.) They are adjusted, restored and reworked by your webmaster in accordance with his aesthetic sensibilities before being downsized and turned into the jpegs you see here. All of these images (including "derivative works") are protected by copyright laws of the United States and other jurisdictions and may not be sold, reproduced or otherwise used for commercial purposes without permission.
[REV 25-NOV-2014]
Vintage photos of:
November 1942. Bingham Canyon, Utah. "View of the Utah Copper Company open-pit mine works at Carr Fork, as seen from the railroad." Note the ore cars on the tracks into the pit. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Andreas Feininger for the Office of War Information. Library of Congress. View full size.
c.1920, in the vicinity of Merced Falls, Calif. My mother's older sister and her car. Maybe someone here can identify it. From original 116 negative. View full size.
Undated, probably early 1940s photo of the shipping department at Macy's in New York. Reverse says "Wide World Photo." View full size.
1864. "Bermuda Hundred, Virginia. Photographer [possibly Mathew Brady, next to the horse] at Butler's signal tower, Cobb's Hill, Appomattox River." Note the cloth-draped darkroom and developing chemicals in bottles on the grass. Wet plate glass negative, half of stereo pair. View full size.
"Filling station, 17th & L." The Washington Accessories Co. service station under construction at 1703 L Street N.W. in early 1922 next to the Stoneleigh Garage. National Photo Company Collection glass negative. View full size.
May 1963. This is a gag shot; the "gag," such as it is, being that I'm supposedly baffled by a comic strip character. I'd been a Pogo fan for as long as I could remember (note how worn that copy is) and by then I was, of course, well aware that Walt Kelly's strip had meanings on more than one level. I still have all our books, Dell comics and even the original "I Go Pogo" campaign button that I vaguely remember picking up at the San Francisco Chronicle building in 1952, when I was 6. But seriously, I posted this because of the nifty clock radio. And I want to assure all the Shorpy skeptics out there that, in the interests of historical authenticity, I did not Photoshop out any of my zits. Ektachrome-X slide.
"Baltimore Fire, 1904. Church of the Messiah in flames." Our fourth photo from the Great Fire of 1904. National Photo Company glass negative. View full size.
"Bethesda, Maryland. Chevy Chase School, 1935." We backspace to another typing class. National Photo Company Collection safety negative. View full size.