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.

Benny Goodman, photographed by a sailor from the USS California at the Golden Gate Exposition of 1939. Great shot showing Benny and singer Louise Tobin.

My uncle (Robert Smith) poses in a small wagon harnessed to a goat during 1926 in La Crosse, Wisconsin. An unknown traveling photographer armed with the wagon and goat must have gone from door-to-door charging a fee to take such pictures because local photo archives contain similar pictures showing different children posing with the very same wagon and goat during the 1924-1926 time period.

Some people don't have "a leg to stand on" but my uncle had one to sit on! 1931 in the Colorado mountains somewhere around Crawford. I never did get an explanation of the photo. It would be interesting to hear where the leg came from. He made good use of it anyway.