U.S. Army Quartermaster's Department, Alexandria, Virginia. View full size. Albumen print from a photograph by Andrew J. Russell taken during the Civil War (1861-1865). Note the elaborate signal mast on the roof.

My dad's brother Charlie on a 1949 cruise to the Bahamas in the sailboat they built. View full size. 35mm Kodachrome by Marvin Hall.

New York Stock Exchange and Wilks Building at Wall and Broad streets, 1921. View larger. Irving Underhill photo. Note the size of the camera.

Coal and sand chutes at the Argentine Yard, Santa Fe R.R., Kansas City, Kansas. March 1943. View full size. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Jack Delano.

Santa Fe freight about to leave for the West Coast from the Corwith yard in Chicago. March 1943. View full size. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Jack Delano, who went with the train to California, taking pictures along the way with his Graflex Speed Graphic. Look for them here in the coming days.

From 1907, a bird's-eye view of Wabash Avenue in Chicago, showing the celebrated "El," or elevated railway, as well as a number of piano manufacturers and the National Casket Company. Detroit Publishing Co. View full size.

New York Giants pitcher Christy Mathewson. December 14, 1910. View full size. Gelatin silver print by Paul Thompson, one in a series of photos taken in the off-season for American Tobacco Co. trading cards.

Chicago Cubs second baseman Johnny Evers. December 16, 1910. Gelatin silver print by Paul Thompson. View full size.

Chicago Cubs first baseman Frank Chance. December 16, 1910. View full size. Gelatin silver print by Paul Thompson.

Chicago White Sox catcher Billy Sullivan. May 13, 1911. View full size. Gelatin silver print by Paul Thompson.

A detail from yesterday's post of picnickers at Marshall Hall.

Ornithopter. Hand-colored lithograph c. 1800-1830. View full size. Tissandier Collection, Library of Congress.

"Washington Monument as it stood for 25 years," 1860. Glass-plate (wet collodion) photograph by Mathew Brady. View full size.

1910 Irving Underhill photo of the 22-story Flatiron (Fuller) Building at 175 Fifth Avenue, one of the earliest (1902) buildings in New York to attain such heights. View full size. More here.

Picnic at Marshall Hall, Maryland, 1893. View full size. Photograph by William Cruikshank. View even larger. Across the Potomac River from Mount Vernon, Marshall Hall was a Colonial era estate whose grounds were used for picnics, concerts and camping. The house burned down in 1981. [Note fingerless gloves worn by ladies on the right, and loud suspenders of man on the left. - Dave]