THE HISTORIC AMERICAN PHOTO ARCHIVE • FRAMED PRINTS • STOCK IMAGES

Consolidated Engineering Company Picnic, 1956. La Verne Park, California. Lee Jensen and his 2-year-old daughter Lori Jensen saying hello to a stray dog. Lori disliked most dogs, but this one caught her eye.

Thomas “Jack” Gould in his father's (my grandfather's) car c. 1906. Clarence, New York. I don’t know the make of car.

My photo from 1983 from an employee picnic in Houston. These are my two sons enjoying the day with their new pup Chu-e.

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Featured image: Home Entertainment, 1943.

Terra Alta Train Depot in West Virginia. Built and completed in 1883 this depot was used for both Passengers and Freight by the B & O Railroad. Photo taken circa 1910

I took my camera and tripod to work one night in 1974 as a Vancouver trolley bus driver. This is a photo at the old (Chilco Street) Stanley Park Bus Loop with a 1948 Brill trolleybus.

In the background, and through the bus, you can see the Stuart Building, which was illegally demolished at 4 am a few years later. To obtain this shot, the camera was placed on the tripod, and the shutter was locked open. With all the bus lights turned off, the bus was originally parked at least a bus length further back.

The reason for all the sparks is this was a passing wire in the loop that was rarely used, and so the metal curve segments on the trolley wires oxidise, and if you power through them you get some great sparks. I pulled the bus forward, created the sparks, and parked it, turned on all the bus lights, and continued the exposure long enough to capture the image of the bus. But not for too long, as I wanted the Stuart Building to show through. So it was a single exposure, although it looks like a "double exposure". I used a Konica Autoreflex 2 camera with Kodachrome film. The loop had incandescent street lights.

Shorpy being the Historic American Photo Archive, and me being American and at this point in my life historic, I present from my archive a nighttime photo experiment I performed in winter 1962 while a teenage camera geek. This is how I made this time-exposure of our Larkspur, California house: I turned on all the lights in the front-facing rooms, also those on the porches and front walk, and added one more (my desk lamp) below the front porch. I set up the camera (an old c. 1920 folding job) in the cactus garden, opened the shutter, ran down to the bottom of that stairway and wrote out my name with a little flashlight, then ran back up and closed the shutter. Voilà! I used that old camera, a Kodak Folding Autographic Brownie 2A, because it was the only one around the house then that could take time exposures. No tripod receptacle, so I had to balance it on something or other. (I know it's winter because of the burlap sacks covering the lantana for frost protection. Oh, and before you ask, no, we're not related to the Addams family.) Scanned from the original "116" 2½ x 4¼ negative, slightly cropped at top. View full size.

This tranquil scene, much less the sight of people in suits, ties, earrings and heels, may have today's frazzled visitors questioning if this is actually the Magic Kingdom. Nevertheless, my brother-in-law took this Kodachrome slide there in February 1958. View full size.

Hyde Park, Massachusetts, 1945. A group photo of women assembly workers, many with their tools, in Building C of the Sturtevant factory. A variety of commercial and industrial heaters were built in this building section.

Hingham, Massachusetts, 1953. Westinghouse-Sturtevant temporarily leased this section of the shipyard for the manufacturing of mechanical draft fans until the completion of a new addition at the Hyde Park, Massachusetts, plant in 1954.

Hyde Park, Massachusetts, 1945. Women assemble speed heaters at the Sturtevant factory (Building C) during WWII. The woman in the foreground is mounting a motor in the heater inlet.

This image was found in a stash of circa 1910 glass negatives from an unknown photographer who lived in Springwater, New York. I know nothing about who's here or why they were gathered in someone's parlor, but I love its Norman Rockwell vibe. Every face looks like one of his subjects. Scanned from a 4x5 inch glass plate. View full size.

Probably around 1920 in the St. Louis area. My dad J. Douglas Martin Jr. in the 10-12 year old range. His dad and grandfather were both civil engineers who worked for railroads and on other engineering projects such as large chimneys.

I thought this glass negative was a picture of the students of a one-room school, but after a closer look at the babies and other clues, I'm doubtful it is. With the flags and the boys armed with toy guns, this may have been connected with some kind of patriotic celebration, possibly a community picnic. It's from Midway, Kentucky, in 1910, as you can see.

Colter & McGinnis' General Store on the 130 block of South Sampson Street, Tremont, Illinois. Circa 1900.

Pictured (left to right) are Frank E. McGinnis, Anna Patte Rollins and Edward Colter, (Unknown), 1900.

The store was later occupied by Gerald Beechman's Grocery, which burned down in a fire in March 1940. The Congregational Church building is located in the rear and was organized in 1844, with a church building was erected in 1848.

"In 1859 Messrs. Wm. Pettis and Nathanial Ingalls built a store building, also a bank building on lot 12 in block 25. The store building is the one where Ed L. Colter and Frank E. McGinnis were for a number of years." — from the "Historical Account of the Origin, Growth and Development of The Village of Tremont, Illinois", 1925

"Hugh McLean, the Village Clerk, will have his office at Colter & McGinnis’ store and anyone having business with him can have the same attended to whether he is there or not, as he has made arrangements with Mr. Colter to look after the affairs of the office if he is not in town." — Oct. 25, 1907