July 1938. "Slums in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania." 35mm nitrate negative by Arthur Rothstein for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.

Circa 1897. "Aboard the U.S.S. Brooklyn -- good night." 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative by Edward H. Hart, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size.

Toledo, Ohio, circa 1905. "Post Office on St. Clair Street." 6½ x 8½ inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size.

May 1940. "Wiping off windshield at service station in Cairo, Illinois." 35mm negative by John Vachon for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.

August 1938. "Quick lunch stand in Plain City, Ohio." 35mm nitrate negative by Ben Shahn for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.

Circa 1925. "Whistle Bottling Works." A peek behind the scenes at the Washington, D.C., bottling plant for Whistle orange soda. View full size.

Washington, D.C., circa 1920. "John D. Hayes" is the caption here, perhaps indicating a connection to the Fanny Farmer chain of candy stores. Economics majors have probably heard of Adam Smith's "invisible hand" of the market; here we see evidence of its phantom foot. National Photo Co. View full size.

Washington, D.C., circa 1925. "Homeopathic Hospital." And the leg bone's connected to the knee bone ... National Photo Co. glass negative. View full size.

December 1942. Melrose Park, Ill. "L. Logan, of West Chicago, boilermaker at the Proviso Yard roundhouse, Chicago & North Western R.R." 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Jack Delano, Office of War Information. View full size.

October 1943. Washington, D.C. "Walter Spangenberg, captain in the Woodrow Wilson High School Cadet Corps, at the school's Regimental Ball." Medium-format negative by Esther Bubley, Office of War Information. View full size.

New York circa 1915. "Brooklyn Bridge, East River and skyline." The Woolworth Building stars in this Lower Manhattan view, with the Singer, Bankers Trust, Hudson Terminal, Municipal and Park Row buildings as understudies. 5x7 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size.

February 1939. "On U.S. 99 near Brawley, Imperial County, California. Homeless mother and youngest child of seven walking the highway from Phoenix, Arizona, where they picked cotton. Bound for San Diego, where the father hopes to get on relief 'because he once lived there.'" Medium-format nitrate negative by Dorothea Lange for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.

Fall 1977. Sea Crest Motors was a Cadillac-Pontiac-Mazda dealership on Route 1A in Lynn, Massachusetts. The Indian could be a reference to Pontiac, the Native American chief and namesake for the car company. Very impressive to gaze up to at night; I don't think he sold many cars though. View full size.

January 1, 1863. "Contrabands coming into camp -- arrival of Negro family in the Union lines." This image, half of a stereograph pair, was turned into a sketch by the artist Alfred Waud and appeared in the Jan. 31, 1863, issue of Harper's Weekly over the caption "An arrival in Camp -- under the Proclamation of Emancipation." Wet plate negative by David B. Woodbury. View full size.

June 22, 1911. "Navy Yard, New York. U.S.S. North Dakota messmen being served from crew's galley." Three heaping helpings of something. View full size.