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:

October 1935. Coal miner in Jenkins, Kentucky. View full size. Photograph by Ben Shahn. Image scanned from 35mm nitrate negative.

The small town of Buena, Washington, in Yakima County, one of the country's top farming regions. August 1939. View full size. Photo by Dorothea Lange.

March 1937. Migratory Mexican field worker's home next to pea field. Imperial Valley, California. View full size. Photograph by Dorothea Lange.

June 1938. In Memphis, hundreds of colored laborers congregate near the bridge every morning at daylight in hopes of work chopping cotton on a plantation, where they are taken by truck. Reduced acreage has made employment scarce for this class of seasonal labor in all towns. "You can't live the commonest way on six bits a day. Not alone nor no way. A man like me can't get no foothold. It's a mighty tough old go. The people here in the morning are hungry, raggedy, but they don't make no hungry march." View full size. Photograph by Dorothea Lange.

June 1938. Pittsburg County, Oklahoma. "Family walking on highway, five children. Started from Idabel, bound for Krebs. In 1936 the father farmed on thirds and fourths at Eagleton, McCurtain County. Was taken sick with pneumonia and lost farm. Was refused relief in county of 15 years' residence because of temporary residence elsewhere." View full size. Photo by Dorothea Lange.

November 1938. "Kern County, California. Cotton picker's child listening to speeches of organizer at strike meeting to raise wages from 75 cents to 90 cents a hundred pounds. Strike unsuccessful." View full size. Photo by Dorothea Lange.

"Children's Delight" carousel wagon with piano or calliope, circa 1910. George B. Marx Wagon Co., Brooklyn. View full size.