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Vintage photos of:
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]
September 1, 1900. "Chicago River elevators at Chicago, Illinois." 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size.
May 1943. "Buffalo, New York. Peter Grimm, age 10 (last seen here), delivers for Loblaw's grocery store with his wagon. This was a rainy day with few customers. Sometimes Peter makes as much as $3 on a Saturday. He pays for all his school supplies and much of his clothing. His mother, a 26-year-old widow, is a crane operator at Pratt & Letchworth." Medium format negative by Marjory Collins for the Office of War Information. View full size.
The Mississippi River circa 1910. "The levee at Baton Rouge -- sternwheeler Paul Tulane." 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size.
San Francisco, 1927. "Oldsmobile roadster at Golden Gate Park." Latest listing in the Shorpy Catalogue of Jaunty Jalopies. 5x7 glass negative. View full size.
June 1936. "Derrick, characteristic sight in Louisiana cane field. Used to transfer cane from wagons to trucks for transportation to sugar mills." Medium format negative by Carl Mydans for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.
January 1937. "Children of migrant citrus worker who lives in a rundown apartment house. The sink at the head of the stairs is the only running water in the house. Winter Haven, Florida." Photo by Arthur Rothstein. View full size.
Circa 1904. "Depot at Braidwood, Illinois." 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size.
September 26, 1922. Washington, D.C. "Virginia Avenue playgrounds." Equipped with a skate pit. National Photo Company glass negative. View full size.
November 1938. Shafter, California. "During the cotton strike, the father, a striking picker, has left his wife and child in the car while he applies to the Farm Security Administration for an emergency food grant." Medium format negative by Dorothea Lange for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.
February 1943. "Daytona Beach, Florida, street scene." Photo by Gordon Parks for the Office of War Information; Photobomb by Humphrey Bogart. View full size.
Detroit circa 1899. "Detroit N.E. from Chamber of Commerce." The elevated vantage affords an excellent view of at least a dozen of the city's celebrated "moonlight tower" carbon arc lamps -- giant electric fixtures 165 feet tall, each illuminating several blocks. 8x10 inch glass negative. View full size.
1963. "George Jenkins, founder of the Publix supermarket chain, at store in Lakeland, Florida." 35mm negative by Marvin Newman for the Look magazine assignment "George Pleasures Them With Groceries." View full size.
San Francisco. "Maxwell - 1919" is all it says here. Perhaps these gents are in scale sales. 5x7 glass negative by Christopher Helin. View full size.
1865. "Earthwork fortifications and bomb-proofs in front of Petersburg, Va." Wet plate glass negative, Civil War collection, Library of Congress. View full size.
July 11, 1923. "Montrose play grounds (girls with dolls)." By now presumably all safely back in their toy boxes. National Photo glass negative. View full size.