June 6, 1950. Pembroke, Ontario. "Vis-O-Matic department store." A variation on mail-order shopping, the Vis-O-Matic system used color slides to display merchandise to potential customers, with orders placed by Teletype and delivered to your door. Photo by Bernard Hoffman, Life image archive. View full size.

Winnetka, Illinois. June 1950. "Student Rue Lawrence wearing frilly summer dress and bright lipstick in classroom at New Trier High School." Rue was on the cover of the October 16, 1950, issue of Life. Color transparency by Alfred Eisenstaedt, Life magazine photo archive. View full size.

"George H. Corson, 1920" is the caption for this enigmatic and slightly damaged photo of bathers in the Potomac River. National Photo Company. View full size.

Washington, 1921. "People's Drug Store, 929 Seventh Street N.W., exterior." The scene at Mass and Seventh, evidently the hernia capital of our nation's capital. National Photo Company Collection glass negative. View full size.

July 1956. Greenville, North Carolina. "Segregationist tobacco sharecropper Marshall Joyner and family bowing heads in prayer before dinner." Color transparency by Margaret Bourke-White, Life photo archive. View full size.

Washington, D.C., circa 1915. "Child with birdcage." A budding Audubon with her notes. Or maybe a recipe. Harris & Ewing glass negative. View full size.

July 1864. "Broadway Landing, Virginia. Surgeons of 4th Division, 9th Army Corps, in front of Petersburg." Main Eastern theater of war, the siege of Petersburg. Wet plate glass negative, photographer unknown. View full size.