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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]
November 1864. "Church built by the 50th Engineers at Poplar Grove, near Petersburg, Virginia." Wet plate glass negative. View full size.
Washington, D.C., 1922. "No. 12 Engine Company." Note the paper tape reels used for recording location information from "Gamewell boxes," the automatic-telegraph system used by municipal fire alarms. View full size.
Washington, D.C., or vicinity circa 1927. "Auto campers." One day, kid, your car will have a built-in phonograph. National Photo glass negative. View full size.
1938. "Smith Furnace, office, Lincoln County, North Carolina." A relic of the charcoal-iron industry, with its forges and furnaces, that grew up in the years after the Revolutionary War. Photo by Frances Benjamin Johnston. View full size.
Sept. 23, 1953. "Stevensville Hotel, Liberty, New York. General view. Herbert Phillips, client." Large-format negative by Gottscho-Schleisner. View full size.
The year: 1935; the place: somewhere in Washington, D.C.; the lady with the Ford: unknown, but notable enough to have been in the Harris & Ewing archive. Maybe someone out there recognizes Great-Grandma. 5x7 glassneg. View full size.
1904. "Nelson House, Poughkeepsie, N.Y." Whose resident barber, Louis L. Herles, offers "Hair Cutting, Shampooing, Shaving & __." Note also: "Ladies' Entrance." 8x10 inch glass negative, Detroit Photographic Co. View full size.
March 1943. "Fort Madison, Iowa. Shopton locomotive shops of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad." Photo by Jack Delano. View full size.
March 1943. "Ash Fork, Arizona (vicinity). Passing an eastbound freight on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad between Winslow and Seligman." Medium-format negative by Jack Delano, Office of War Information. View full size.
August 21, 1924. New York. "C.G. Dawes." Charles G. Dawes, some two months away from being elected Vice President of the United States. His platform: Helping the little man. 5x7 inch glass negative, Bain News Service. View full size.
1906. "Columbus Institute, Poughkeepsie, N.Y." With a tailor, cycle shop, dentist and chewing gum close at hand. Along with whatever it is the Columbus Institute does. 8x10 inch glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size.
UPDATE: The location, supplied by Shorpy commenter Downtown Dave, is Madras Central Railway Station in India.
This uncaptioned 5x7 glass negative from the Detroit Publishing archive looks to be far afield from that company's usual stomping grounds. Where in the world are we? Let the crowdsource geolocation countdown commence! View full size.
An uncaptioned photo taken by Marion Post Wolcott in September 1941 whose neighbors show bean-threshing activities in the North Platte River Valley of Nebraska. So we'll call these guys the Legume Brothers. View full size.
Evidently a haunt of John Quincy Adams in the 1820s, "the old house" on F Street was transformed into an office building in 1885 by innkeeper Caleb Willard, who employed the latest fireproofing ideas while managing to preserve "the old wall in the room where Mr. Adams used to sit in his chair and gaze upon the Capitol."
Washington, D.C., circa 1921. "Adams Iron Building, F Street." Its ferrous nature echoed in the Sidewalk of Many Manholes. 8x6 glass negative. View full size.
Circa 1900. "C.S. Jackson group on Dudley Walker's porch." In addition to any Walkers present, this would include relatives of photographer and Detroit Publishing partner William Henry Jackson -- possibly the family of his son Clarence. And a puppy of uncertain lineage. 8x10 glass negative. View full size.