THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL PHOTO ARCHIVE • FRAMED PRINTS • STOCK IMAGES

The Philadelphia Pipe Bending Company, founded in 1880, is still in operation today. Here we see two workers standing inside some large coils with advertising signage. 6½ x 8½ inch glass negative. View full size.

Dayton, Ohio, circa 1925. Mrs. Margaret Combs with her grandsons Arthur and Charles Neil (at left), and Robert and Edward Galloway. View full size.

Maintenance being done on the USS Potomac (AT-50) in Dry Dock No. 1 of League Island (Philadelphia Naval Yard) in 1907. 6½ x 8½ inch glass negative. View full size.

October 21, 1914. Bronx, New York. A Cross, Austin, & Ireland Lumber Co. truck accident on the trolley tracks at East 138th Street and Southern (now Bruckner) Boulevard. 8x10 inch glass negative. View full size.

Newburyport, Massachusetts, circa 1904. A graduating class of nurses outside the main entrance to the Anna Jaques Hospital. 6½ x 8½ inch glass negative. View full size.

My wife's cousin, Tony Granieri, with his new 1957 Dodge Royal Lancer at his house in Salt Lake City. Tony was a WWII veteran and earned the Purple Heart for injuries to his legs. He was self-conscious about that and never wore shorts the rest of his life. View full size.

My brothers, circa 1960, from the family 35mm slide collection. I do not know the location, it does not look like any lot we lived on. My guess is it was a neighbor's house in South Bend, Indiana, where we have visited them before. | View full size.

      A holiday chestnut worth reheating over the Shorpy Duraflame.

"Christmas 1954." My grandmother Sarah Hall (1904-2000) in her living room in Miami Shores four years before I was born. She made the mantel decoration, which saw service for many years, with Brazilian pepper berries from a big tree in the backyard, mixed with pine cones, all attached to a chicken wire frame. Grandmother, handy with a needle and thread, also made the curtains. She was, needless to say, big on Christmas. 35mm Kodachrome. View full size.

October 1958, somewhere in Pennsylvania. Big brother is ready for a night of trick-or-treating. Rob from the rich, and share with your understudy! Our fourth selection from a batch of Kodachrome slides found on eBay. View full size.

This despondent looking crew are the drawn from the various Scandanavian, German, and Irish families settled in or near Wadena, Minnesota during the late 1800s. Wadena, located in the west-central part of the state, was (and is) a pretty small town, so some of these kids probably had an epic daily commute, by foot, from farm to school house. Identities are unknown except for Bernard Francis Burch (1889-1985), third from left in the first standing row. View full size.

It's seventy years ago in Idyllic Larkspur™, where we find me (bottom left corner) with Bob, David, Bob, Jim, Jim, Margaret, Sandy, Donna, Rae Ann, Roberta, Virginia, Jerry, Buzzy, Fred, Gordy, Frances, Alice, Alice, Sheila, Mrs. Madeline Drew and others whose names I forget. This was taken within a month of losing nearly half our classmates, they having been siphoned off to the district's brand new school in neighboring "Twin City," almost-as-Idyllic Corte Madera. And that one was already overcrowded, for which first-wave baby boomers such as we must shoulder the blame. As for me, good old L-CM was just four blocks from our home at 9 Arch Street, and I continued to walk the round-trip every school day, rain or shine, until I graduated 8th grade. View full size.

Johnson Gear & Mfg. Co., Berkeley, California, circa 1922.

Frances Dorsey "Fanny" Cagwin, along with her husband George, were our neighbors in Larkspur, California, where they'd lived since 1905. Frances had been a school teacher in Virginia City, Nevada when she met George, and they married in 1887 at Carson City, where he was employed at the U.S. Mint. She was an accomplished musician, and in the living room of their Craftsman style home could be found a gleaming Steinway rosewood square grand piano. A wedding gift of her father to her mother, it had made the trip from New York by ship around Cape Horn to San Francisco, then by horse-drawn freight over the Sierras to Virginia City. Follow the link in George's name to see him and get a glimpse of his eventful life. Frances died in 1958 at the age of 92, and George in 1959 at 102. My big brother, then in high school and doing gardening work and errand-running for the Cagwins, took this Ansco Color slide with his then-new Leidolf Lordox 24x36 35mm camera. View full size.

From circa 1946 comes this 35mm Kodachrome of Jim and Jack Hardman and their Christmas train set in Upper Montclair, New Jersey. View full size.

Frank Anneser (left) and friends decked out in lederhosen with their German Oktoberfest band. Bringing a taste of Bavarian music to Buffalo, New York, in 1925. View full size.