Any lovers of old photographs? Check out Shorpy

[realisticphish]

If you've never been to www.shorpy.com, prepare to have your head explode. There are hundreds of high-res old photos, from about 1860-1950 or so. Trains, wartime women workers (alliteration!), coal miners, newsboys, sharecroppers, rowing teams, lots of different stuff. I've learned a few things:
1. Jack Delano is a god among men; his railroad photos are breathtaking
2. People back then were as weird as they are now
3. There was color photography in the 40's, Kodachrome. You sometimes forget that the world was indeed in color back then...

You will leave with countless wallpapers :D

The first 3 are Jack Delano; I was going to link to the hi-res photos, but I couldn't get the formatting right. Just take the file name here, and remove ".preview" from the filename, and that will get you to the high res. But I encourage you to just browse the whole site; incredible stuff.

[Pithlet]

1. I have it bookmarked, and go there every day.

The top picture is one of my favorites.

[realisticphish]

2. that one's my wallpaper right now

This and Square America have really gotten me into old photography... can't take pictures worth a shit, but I love looking at it

[grasswire]

3. thank you, thank you, thank you

I'm going to enjoy this place.

What is square america?

[realisticphish]

4. it's an awesome site

http://www.squareamerica.com/
It's a collection of vintage snapshots from pre-1970's (I'm not sure how far back they go). Most are in the 1920-1960 range. Fascinating place, lots of intriguing and sometimes disturbing shots

[stuntcat]

5. thanks!

and for squareamerica too, they're both so good. I'll have to time myself there I think.

I found this Memento Mori archive a couple of weeks ago, it's great-
http://thanatos.net/galleries/details.php?image_id=583
It's a little dark but hey.. :)

[Gold Metal Flake]

6. Shorpy is wonderful.

Shorpy is the name of a child worker. Meet him at page 1. The photos of children in mines at Shorpy, I have found, are useful to help illustrate the wonders of conservative economics. I found Shorpy via a link at http://www.plan59.com, a great website for advertising art.

Check out http://www.junipergallery.com/galleries/010.htm

[realisticphish]

8. i was thinking that earlier today

all the "UNIONS ARE JUST LAZY LOL" people need to take a look at this stuff, read up on Ludlow and Lattimer, and come back and tell me unions aren't a good thing

[u4ic]

7. Fantastic site, thanks!