Washington, D.C., circa 1938. "Dancing class, WRC studio." Smile for the microphone, girls. Harris & Ewing Collection glass negative. View full size.

Anne Lee Patterson (Miss Northern Kentucky). She won her title in Galveston, Texas. Actress Dorothy Lamour was her first runner-up. She then went on to take second place in the 1931 Miss Universe pageant and joined the cast of the Ziegfeld Follies 1932 revival of “Showboat”. Scanned from the original Eastman Kodak nitrate negative. View full size.

April 27, 1938. "California Fig Ball. Made for Harold Thoreson, California State Society." And you thought fig balls were something Grandma made around Christmas. Harris & Ewing Collection glass negative. View full size.

Here we see some teens at a dance party. I love the formal attire. Scanned from a Kodak safety negative. View full size.

At the same party, the dancers from this photo continue their fun. Scanned from a Kodak safety negative. View full size.

May 7, 1924. "Three models from Washington's spring fashion show snapped at Arlington Beach." National Photo Company glass negative. View full size.

July 1940. "Near Shawboro, North Carolina. Group of Florida migrants on their way to Cranberry [i.e., Cranbury], New Jersey, to pick potatoes." Medium-format safety negative by Jack Delano for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.

"Miss Marjorie Joesting, August 2, 1926." Our third look at Marjorie, a Miss Washington, D.C., who was runner-up at the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City. National Photo Company Collection glass negative. View full size.

A beautiful photo of my mother Noreen (at 19 years old) taken in the spring of 1940. A year later she married my father John, and two years later she would accompany him to the west coast of Canada in Victoria, B.C., where my dad served as sergeant in the Canadian army. In June of 1944 I would be born out there. They returned to Fort William Ontario(now Thunder Bay) in early 1945 and my Dad was then shipped off to England for another couple of years before the whole thing was over. This is one of my favorite photos of my mother. View full size.

I can feel the love shown in this picture. The date is late 1940s, the place probably Vancouver, BC, in the yard of the I'Anson home. King Tut, their collie, was the hero of the neighborhood, as he rescued a neighbor's small dog from a "dog pack" that was picking on him. That's Dad (Tom Jr.) and Mom (Marilyn Gardner). View full size.

Washington, 1918. "U.S. Navy Intelligence Bureau. Fingerprint department clerks James A. Noonan, Mrs. G.G. Boswell." Harris & Ewing glass neg. View full size.

New York, July 5, 1921. "Joan Broadhurst." One of the players in "The Broadway Whirl," a musical comedy revue at the Times Square Theatre. View full size.

New York, July 5, 1921. "Whirl Girls." Our second look at chorus girls for "The Broadway Whirl," a musical comedy revue at the Times Square Theatre. 5x7 glass negative, George Grantham Bain Collection. View full size.

New York, June 3, 1921. "Orloff (girl in slacks)." Our third and final look at this intriguing ingenue. 5x7 glass negative, G.G. Bain Collection. View full size.

Circa 1921, the mysterious Miss Orloff again. For this second of three portraits in the Bain archive, she's thrown on some actual clothes. If not dressed to the nines, she's at least up to the twos. George Grantham Bain Collection. View full size.