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Vintage photos of:
Our holdings include hundreds of glass and film negatives/transparencies that we've scanned ourselves; in addition, many other photos on this site were extracted from reference images (high-resolution tiffs) in the Library of Congress research archive. (To query the database click here.) They are adjusted, restored and reworked by your webmaster in accordance with his aesthetic sensibilities before being downsized and turned into the jpegs you see here. All of these images (including "derivative works") are protected by copyright laws of the United States and other jurisdictions and may not be sold, reproduced or otherwise used for commercial purposes without permission.
[REV 25-NOV-2014]
February 1936. "Roadside sandwich stand. Ponchatoula, Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana." 8x10 inch nitrate negative by Walker Evans for the Resettlement Administration. View full size.
July 1942. "Top of Detroit City Hall dwarfed by the modern Penobscot Building in the background." Photo by Arthur Siegel for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.
July 1942. "Detroit, Michigan (vicinity). Standard Oil truck used during a rubber scrap drive." 4x5 inch acetate negative by Arthur Siegel for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.
July 1942. "Lunchtime in the wartime capital. People's Drug store on G Street N.W. at noon." Acetate negative by Marjory Collins for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.
From the "Linda" Kodachromes circa 1952 comes this Dutch door festively dressed with spruce wreath and merry-maker. Nobody leaves till the eggnog's all gone. View full size.
June-July 1942. Washington, D.C. "Cashiers checking out customer purchases with Ration Book No. 1 at the Giant Food shopping center on Wisconsin Avenue. Giant Food Store is a self-service market chain handling all types and many varieties of food and household appliances." Acetate negative by Marjory Collins for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.
June 1942. Washington, D.C. "A bicycle rental shop on 22nd Street, near Virginia Avenue N.W., on Sunday." Acetate negative by Marjory Collins, Farm Security Administration. View full size.
It's the week before Christmas, time for a hallowed holiday tradition here at Shorpy: The Office Xmas Party! Which has been going on for 97 years now. Will Clarence in Sales ever get up the nerve to ask out Hermione from Accounting? Is there gin in that oilcan? Ask the bear.
December 1925. "Washington, D.C. -- Western Electric Co. group." There are enough little dramas playing out here to keep the forensic partyologists busy until Groundhog Day. National Photo Company Collection glass negative. View full size.
July 1942. Washington, D.C. "People's Drug store lunch counter on G Street N.W. at noon." Acetate negative by Marjory Collins for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.
July 1942. "Detroit, Michigan. View from Fisher Building of traffic at 5:30 on Second Avenue at Grand Boulevard." Acetate negative by Arthur Siegel, Office of War Information. View full size.
November 1942. "Grenade throwers. Ready to make a shipment of pineapples to Hitler, Hirohito & Co. An infantryman at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, holds a double handful of deadly grenades that may one day blast open a road to Berlin or Tokyo." 4x5 acetate negative by Alfred Palmer for the Office of War Information. View full size.
September 1960. New York. "Demonstration to free Ukraine from Soviet rule outside the United Nations building during Nikita Khrushchev's visit for opening session of the Fifteenth General Assembly." 35mm acetate negative by Fred Stein. View full size.
Boonton, New Jersey, circa 1900. "Boat ascending plane, Morris and Essex Canal." (Actually just the Morris Canal, but whatever.) At right, the Bowden Bottling Works. View full size.
Boonton, New Jersey, circa 1900. "Top of plane, Morris and Essex Canal." 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Photographic Company. View full size.
A newly restored version of a Shorpy favorite that has collected three pages of comments since it was first posted in 2007 --
The caption for this one just says "Post Office." Thanks to our commenters we now know that the building with the statue is the Our Lady of Lourdes School at 468 W. 143rd Street in New York circa 1914. 8x10 glass negative, Bain News Service. View full size | The school in 2007.