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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]
Circa 1904. "Depot at Braidwood, Illinois." 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size.
September 26, 1922. Washington, D.C. "Virginia Avenue playgrounds." Equipped with a skate pit. National Photo Company glass negative. View full size.
November 1938. Shafter, California. "During the cotton strike, the father, a striking picker, has left his wife and child in the car while he applies to the Farm Security Administration for an emergency food grant." Medium format negative by Dorothea Lange for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.
February 1943. "Daytona Beach, Florida, street scene." Photo by Gordon Parks for the Office of War Information; Photobomb by Humphrey Bogart. View full size.
Detroit circa 1899. "Detroit N.E. from Chamber of Commerce." The elevated vantage affords an excellent view of at least a dozen of the city's celebrated "moonlight tower" carbon arc lamps -- giant electric fixtures 165 feet tall, each illuminating several blocks. 8x10 inch glass negative. View full size.
1963. "George Jenkins, founder of the Publix supermarket chain, at store in Lakeland, Florida." 35mm negative by Marvin Newman for the Look magazine assignment "George Pleasures Them With Groceries." View full size.
San Francisco. "Maxwell - 1919" is all it says here. Perhaps these gents are in scale sales. 5x7 glass negative by Christopher Helin. View full size.
1865. "Earthwork fortifications and bomb-proofs in front of Petersburg, Va." Wet plate glass negative, Civil War collection, Library of Congress. View full size.
July 11, 1923. "Montrose play grounds (girls with dolls)." By now presumably all safely back in their toy boxes. National Photo glass negative. View full size.
May 1943. "Clinton, Iowa. Women wipers of the Chicago & North Western cleaning one of the giant freight locomotives." Medium-format negative by Jack Delano for the Office of War Information. View full size.
January 1943. "Freight operations on the Indiana Harbor Belt railroad between Chicago and Hammond, Indiana. Getting his waybills, Conductor Cunningham telephones his yardmaster with the number of cars he has to handle and where the delivery is to be made." Medium-format negative by Jack Delano for the Office of War Information. View full size.
January 1943. "Freight operations on the Indiana Harbor Belt railroad between Chicago and Hammond, Indiana. At 8:45 p.m. the train arrives at its destination." Photo by Jack Delano for the Office of War Information. View full size.
Washington, D.C., circa 1920. "People's Drug Store, 15th Street & New York Avenue N.W." National Photo Company glass negative. View full size.
1963. "George Jenkins, founder of the Publix supermarket chain, with his family at their home in Lakeland, Florida." 35mm negative by Marvin Newman for the Look magazine assignment "George Pleasures Them With Groceries." View full size.
San Francisco, 1927. "Stutz Vertical Eight with Safety Chassis." The so-called "Safety Stutz" featured four-wheel hydraulic brakes and wire-reinforced, supposedly shatterproof glass -- just the thing for cruising in the rain on bald tires. 5x7 glass negative by Chris Helin. View full size.
November 12, 1920. Washington, D.C. "14 PERSONS INJURED IN CRASH OF 3 CARS: Wreck at 9th and F Streets When Brakes Fail to Work Endangers Many Others. POLICEMEN LEAP TO SAFETY. More Than 2,000 Citizens Delayed an Hour in Getting Home ... " Harris & Ewing glass negative. View full size.