THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL PHOTO ARCHIVE • FRAMED PRINTS • STOCK IMAGES

Dressed up for a party in Neenah, Wisconsin, circa 1929.

I believe this is Burbank airport on a rainy day in the early 1940s. The DC3 first in the line is an American Airlines Flagship Skysleeper. These aircraft were equipped with individual berths and required approximately 17 hours to fly coast to coast.

Photo: Don Hall, Sr.

Don Hall
Yreka, CA

It took a lot of mule power to break that sod in North Dakota back in the 1890s.

Circa 1916 "convertible"

The Engels' brand new horse circa 1900 in Baroda, Michigan.

Camp 4 next to Ford ranch, 1906. This camp is above Minor Mill in Glendale, Humboldt County, Calif.

This is Camp 1 in the canyon a mile and a half above Minor Mill in Glendale, Humboldt County, Calif. Taken in 1886 to 1887. Photographer unknown to me.

Benjamin Franklin Piester (1846-1912), my great-great-grandfather, arrived in Nebraska between 1883 and 1886. The photo is marked:

Jennings-Hyde-Co.
COR. FARNAM & 20TH STS.
OMAHA, NEBR.

Photo was likely taken between 1900 and 1910.

Santa Fe 4-8-4 2928 in passenger train helper service over Cajon Pass. Photo taken 10-19-1952. Photographer unknown, unfortunately. View full size.

Beba Lein, my grandmother, as a recent immigrant to the United States from Mogilev, Byelorussia. She made her way quickly to Los Angeles, where she joined a community of older siblings, cousins and other folk from her village.

Main Street in Alliance, Nebraska circa 1929-1930. Likely taken by my grandmother, Bertha (Phillips) Richard. For those local to the area, Main Street may have actually been Box Butte Avenue.

German soldier on BMW motorcycle in 1940.

My great uncle Claxton. I only knew him when he was older and had a full head of wavy gray hair. In his younger days he had jet black hair with a white stripe straight up the middle. I'm not entirely sure of the date, but it must've been in the early 30's or late 20's. Uncle Claxton had been sick and had just gone outside to warm up a bit. His youngest brother was a bit of a gadget freak and snapped this picture. I always thought it made him look very Bohemian ...

Autochrome portrait of a young woman thought to be Charlotte Spaulding, taken around 1908 by Edward Steichen. Made with a complex process using three hues of dyed potato starch, autochromes were glass positives viewed with a projector or mounted on a light box. Credit: George Eastman House Collection.

TWO EXAMPLES of early color photography by none other than Edward Steichen have come to light recently, the New York Times reports: "Almost as intriguing as the pictures themselves is the story of how they recently made their way from a house in Buffalo, where they apparently sat unseen for decades, to the collection of the George Eastman House in Rochester, one of the world’s leading photography museums, where they will be exhibited for the first time this fall."

I love this photo of my little grandma in kindergarten. She had a big name for a little girl: Jessie Arvilla Kammerdiener. This was in Carthage, Missouri, 1905.