Syracuse, New York, circa 1905. "Clinton Square." 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size.

July 11, 1923. Washington, D.C. "Montrose playgrounds." Who is top dog? National Photo Company Collection glass negative. View full size.

Detroit circa 1905. "Detroit City Gas Company office, heater." Note the photographer or his assistant holding the drape. 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size.

1939. An uncaptioned portrait possibly of photographer John Vachon's wife, Millicent (Penny) Leeper. 35mm nitrate negative. View full size.

Mobile, Alabama, circa 1910. "Royal Street looking south from St. Francis." 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size.

November 1940. "Lunchroom. Aberdeen, South Dakota." 35mm nitrate negative by John Vachon for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.

Baltimore, Maryland, circa 1905. "Lexington Market." Yes, they have bananas. 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size.

Fall 1940, somewhere in the Midwest. An uncaptioned shot by John Vachon with neighboring 35mm frames taken in Fargo, North Dakota, and Little Falls, Minnesota. We'll just wait for these kids to fill in the details. View full size.

February 1942. "Conversion. Copper and brass processing. Weighing brass scrap. The war program calls for the use of such vast amounts of brass and copper, among other metals, that all available scrap must be utilized. Here a truckload of brass trimmings from a sheet mill is being weighed. From here it will go to the casting shop, where it will be remelted and cast again into billets. Chase Brass and Copper Company, Euclid, Ohio." 4x5 nitrate negative by Alfred Palmer for the Office of War Information. View full size.

October 1940. Moorhead, Minnesota. "Fox chained to automobile." 35mm negative by John Vachon for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.

Ca. 1935-1938. Nash County, North Carolina. "Tories Tavern, Nashville vicinity. Structure dates to 1766." Photo by Frances Benjamin Johnston. View full size.

Washington, D.C., July 1923. "Sunshine Girls." Also known as the Tiller Girls, a dance troupe originated by the British musical-theater impresario John Tiller. National Photo Company Collection glass negative. View full size.

For those unfamiliar with the term, "Monster Kid" has become something of an official designation for that subset of the post-WWII baby-boomer demographic that consisted of young and adolescent boys who: read and collected science-fiction and fantasy paperbacks and super-hero comic books, assembled plastic models of movie monsters, subscribed to Famous Monsters of Filmland, wheedled their parents into letting them stay up late whenever Frankenstein, Dracula, The Wolf Man or The Mummy came on TV and oft-times made their own epics with their dad's 8mm movie camera. My friend and model- and diorama-making collaborator Doug, who I captured on Kodachrome in the kitchen of his folks' home in Ross, California perusing an Edgar Rice Burroughs SF novel, fit that profile and, like many others, never lost the passion. I wasn't an MK myself, but was into models and movies, so we eventually took his dad's camera and experimented with stop-motion depictions of fiery toy car cliff-plunges and the like. Alas, our elaborate c.1964 production of Doctor Faustus has remained an unfinished masterpiece. View full size.

November 1940. "Greek restaurant in Paris, Kentucky." Mussolini's Fascist regime has just invaded Greece, and the word ITALIAN has been painted over. 35mm negative by John Vachon for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.

July 1941. "Parking lot, Chicago." This would look nice in color. 35mm nitrate negative by John Vachon for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.