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.
Vintage photos of:

July 1941. Swimming hole at Pine Grove Mills, Pennsylvania. View full size. Photograph by Edwin Rosskam for the Farm Security Administration.

November 1941. Eastern Bessemer converter at Republic Steel in Youngstown, Ohio. Molten iron is charged with air to change it into steel for war essentials. View full size. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Alfred Palmer.

Powerhouse Mechanic and Steam Pump (1920). One of Lewis Wickes Hine's celebrated "work portraits" made after he completed his decade-long project documenting child labor. View full size. Juniper Gallery Fine Art Print.

June 1942. M-3 tank in action at Fort Knox, Kentucky. View full size. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Alfred Palmer, Office of War Information.

December 1942. Time exposure of repair tracks of the Chicago & North Western R.R. View full size. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Jack Delano.

November 1942. Hanna furnaces of the Great Lakes Steel Corporation, Detroit. General view showing tank which stores gas from the coke oven. Square building and extension in middle ground is where coal is fed to a feeder belt and then transferred to a storage place on top of the coke oven. The coal is then dropped into three inverted bottle-like containers and from there fed directly into the coke ovens. View full size. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Arthur Siegel.

November 1942. "Hanna furnaces of the Great Lakes Steel Corp., Detroit. Coal pusher apparatus with coal storage building seen in the fog which constantly hangs over the plant." 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Arthur Siegel. View full size.