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.

September 1942. Fort Belvoir, Va. "Army Sgt. George Camblair on kitchen police duty." Our first example of the more than 200 photos shot by Jack Delano documenting this soldier's induction, training and home life. View full size.

Germany circa 1938. "Meeting room of Nazi Party facility in Upper Bavaria." The swastika candles lend a rustic note. This looks like something out of a comic book or movie serial, but it was all too real. Photo-Pfaller print. View full size.
Additional details on this photo, one of seven pictures in a portfolio that's part of the Third Reich Collection at the Library of Congress:
One portfolio (seven photographic prints); 13 x 18 cm. Photographs on mounts 23 x 29 cm. No captions. Ink stamp on back of mounts: "Photo-Pfaller, Traunstein/Obb. Tel. 451." Confiscated by U.S. military intelligence authorities, 1945-1946. Transfer; 1947. Photographs show a chapel (?) in a Nazi party house in Bavaria. Includes wooden carved benches and podium; elaborate Nazi eagle and swastika symbol made of wood; mural of fallen soldier and SA companion; light fixture incorporating a helmet. Also includes exterior views of the house showing a mural with SA soldier with swastika flag and farmers with tools.

August 1942. "Italian-American parade honoring neighborhood boys in the United States Army." A close-up of the banner glimpsed here. (The bottom, just out of the frame at right, reads WE MUST NOT FAIL THEM.) Medium-format negative by Marjory Collins for the Office of War Information. View full size.

August 1942. New York. "Dancing and music on Mott Street at a flag raising ceremony in honor of neighborhood Italian boys in the Army." Medium-format negative by Marjory Collins for the Office of War Information. View full size.

May 1942. "Running up a barrage balloon. Scene at the U.S. Marine Corps glider detachment training camp at Parris Island, South Carolina." Photo by Alfred Palmer for the Office of War Information. View full size.

July 1942. "Ford bomber plant at Willow Run, Michigan. Inspection of more than a thousand separate tubing pieces composing the fuel, hydraulic, de-icing and other systems in a bomber is a highly important job. This young employee at the giant Willow Run plant uses her tiny flashlight to discover any internal defects in the tubing." Photo by Ann Rosener, Office of War Information. View full size.

August 1942. "New York. Chinese-American family in their home in Flatbush." Back in Brooklyn with the boy we saw earlier here. Medium-format nitrate negative by Marjory Collins, Office of War Information. View full size.