November 1940. "Pierre, South Dakota." Medium format acetate negative by John Vachon for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.

November 1940. "Pierre, South Dakota, on a cold night." Home of the Dome, luring passersby with "Beer and Dancing." Acetate negative by John Vachon. View full size.

November 1940. "Schulstad boys listening to radio. Aberdeen, South Dakota." Medium format acetate negative by John Vachon for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.

October 1940. "Abandoned farmhouse. Ward County, North Dakota." Medium format acetate negative by John Vachon for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.

November 1940. "Shoveling snow. Draper, South Dakota." Medium format acetate negative by John Vachon for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.

November 1940. "Agricultural day laborer, wife and daughter in new home built by the FSA. Delmo labor homes project, New Madrid County, Missouri." Medium format acetate negative by John Vachon for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.

November 1940. "Pierre, South Dakota, on a cold night." Medium format acetate negative by John Vachon for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.

        About these images: The exposures by John Vachon, Marion Post Wolcott and other FSA photographers that we've been posting over the past few months may be around 80 years old, but have only recently been scanned in high resolution and made available for download by the Library of Congress. So in that sense they're "new" -- the photo above, for example, is from a batch of around 300 negatives scanned in October 2019 and published to the LOC website on December 12. These high-quality scans are gradually replacing the low-resolution images that have populated the LOC's online archive since 2011.

September 1940. "Quicksand School, Breathitt County, Kentucky. Many parents and young people from the school and nearby communities attend the pie and box supper, given by the school to raise money for repairs and supplies. Each box or pie is auctioned off to the highest bidder, sometimes bringing a good deal, since the girl's 'boyfriend' usually wins and has the privilege of eating it with her afterwards." Medium format acetate negative by Marion Post Wolcott for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.

The summer of 1965 finds my father, mother and brother on location in Tinseltown at 6353 Hollywood Boulevard. We didn't see any celebrities, but we did come across record stores, and my brother is clutching two bags of our gleanings therefrom. What my parents did while we gleaned I'm not sure, but no doubt they met the situation with their usual forbearance. Here in my Kodachrome slide they're approaching one of Dave Garroway's two stars - this one for radio - on the Walk of Fame. Garroway, some might remember, was the first host of NBC's Today Show. Later, they were at Hollywood and Vine, where I was snapped in 1963. View full size.

October 1940. "Abandoned schoolhouse. Ramsey County, North Dakota." Medium format acetate negative by John Vachon for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.

November 1940. "Lincoln, Nebraska." Acetate negative by John Vachon. View full size.

March 1941. "Facilities at trailer camp for construction workers. Ocean View, outskirts of Norfolk, Virginia." Photo by John Vachon for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.

October 1940. "Dust storm. Ramsey County, North Dakota." Medium format acetate negative by John Vachon for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.

January 1941. "Street scene in Ambridge, Pennsylvania." Medium format acetate negative by John Vachon for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.

January 1941. "Aliquippa, Pennsylvania. Jones and Laughlin steel mill -- Ohio River." Acetate negative by John Vachon for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.