"Durward Nickerson, Western Union messenger #55. Birmingham, Alabama. 18 years old. Lives in Bessemer, R.F.D. #1. Saturday night, Sept. 26, 1914, he took investigator through the old Red Light on Avenue A, pointed out the various resorts, told about the inmates he has known there. Only a half dozen of them were open now. Durward has put in two years in messenger work and shows the results of temptations open to him. He has recently returned from a hobo trip through 25 states. He was not inclined to tell much about the shady side of messenger work, but one could easily see that he has been through much that he might have avoided in a profitable kind of work." View full size. Photo by Lewis Wickes Hine.

Sunbathers at the city park swimming pool in Caldwell, Idaho. July 1941. The girls are rubbing olive oil on each other. View full size. Photograph by Russell Lee.

Basketball at Durland's Riding Academy, New York. 1908. View full size. George Grantham Bain Collection. Since 1949, the Durland's building at Central Park West has been home to ABC, at 7 West 66th Street. Until 1999, the sets for "20/20" and "Good Morning America" were in the main riding ring (above).

Basketball on the tanbark at Durland's Riding Academy, New York. 1908. Evidently it's traveling if you let go of the reins. View full size. George Grantham Bain Collection. Check out how this pic looked before restoration.

"Backstage" at the girlie show at the Vermont state fair, Rutland. September 1941. View full size. 35mm Kodachrome transparency by Jack Delano.

Lady residents of a St. Paul rooming house. September 1939. View full size. Photograph by John Vachon.

"Living on a Skyscraper." Boys playing marbles on the roof of a New York apartment building circa 1909. View full size. George Grantham Bain Collection.

Toy show at Madison Square Garden, 1908. View full size. George Grantham Bain Collection. In the foreground: Junior Aero Club display. Several shadowy blurs can be seen in this time exposure moving about what at first glance appears to be a deserted exhibit space. The car merry-go-round is slowly revolving.

A colorful scene from the Vermont State Fair at Rutland, September 1941. View full size. 35mm Kodachrome transparency by Jack Delano.

Barker at Vermont State Fair, Rutland. September 1941. View full size. 35mm Kodachrome transparency by Jack Delano.

Whitehall Street, Atlanta, 1864. This photo of a black Union soldier posted at a slave auction house in Atlanta is one of hundreds taken by George N. Barnard during Gen. Sherman's occupation of the city in the fall of 1864. Many were destroyed in the conflagration that erupted upon Sherman's firing of Confederate munitions stores when he departed on Nov. 15. View full size.

"The War in the West." 1864 photo (half of a stereograph) by George N. Barnard. Atlanta Intelligencer newspaper office by the railroad depot. Exposure times were so long that anyone walking appears only as an ectoplasmic blur. View full size. Note tents in background and troop train with soldiers atop the boxcars.

Chain gang of convicts engaged in road work, Autumn 1910. Pitt County, North Carolina. The inmates are quartered in the wagons, which are equipped with bunks and move from place to place as labor is utilized. The central figure is J.Z. McLawhon, county superintendent of chain gangs. The dogs are bloodhounds used for running down any attempted escapes. View full size.

Washington tenements, Nov. 1935. View full size. Photo by Carl Mydans.

Pittsburgh slum dwelling, 1938. View full size. Photograph by Arthur Rothstein.