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:

Touching up the U.S. Army Air Forces insignia on a "Vengeance" dive bomber manufactured at Consolidated-Vultee's Nashville division. February 1943. View full size. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Alfred Palmer.

February 1943. "Capping and inspecting tubing that goes into the manufacture of the 'Vengeance' A-31 dive bomber made at Consolidated-Vultee's Nashville division." 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Alfred Palmer. View full size.

July/Aug. 9, 1910: The French actress Polaire, her little blind dog and the young man she provocatively called her "slave." Newspapers of the day were a bit more circumspect. The Washington Post of April 11, 1915: "Mlle. Polaire has been chief- ly remarkable for her tiny waist, her jewels, her black footman and her dashing originality in any role of life." Full size. G.G. Bain Collection. More here.

May 1942. Patriotic display at the Beecher Street School in Southington, Conn. View full size. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Fenno Jacobs.

P-51 "Mustang" fighter in flight near the Inglewood, California, plant of North American Aviation. October 1942. View full size. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Alfred Palmer.

Still life with ice and shrimp: The Fulton Fish Market in 1954. View full size. Photograph by Walter Albertin of the New York World Telegram.