By the time the sun rose in New York City on the morning of June 6, 1944, the first and second waves of American troops had come ashore under heavy German fire on the beaches of Normandy. Working under the command of General Eisenhower, an armada of 5,0…
The Natick Soldier Systems Center (NSSC) is responsible for the technology, research, development, engineering, fielding, and sustainment of U.S. military's food, clothing, shelters, airdrop systems, and Soldier support items. Construction on the resear…
Many Americans first encountered the phrase “the American Way” on huge billboards that by 1938 had sprouted in hundreds of U.S. cities and towns. Shopping for groceries, heading to work, or entering an empty stretch of highway, they were suddenly confro…
We can only imagine the horrors seen and shared between the four of these men. They all have the stare and you can see it gradually getting worse in their eyes as they get older. Approximately 80 years of wars in one picture, all of them went to war but ex…
There are only two known photos in existence taken inside the US Supreme Court while in session. The Supreme Court of the United States does not allow cameras in the courtroom when the court is in session, a policy which is the subject of much debate. Alth…
The famous “whipped slave” photograph pictures the runaway slave Gordon exposing his severely whipped back to the camera of two itinerant photographers, William D. McPherson and his partner, Mr. Oliver. Gordon had received a severe whipping for undisclosed…
In the hardships caused by the Great Depression, the American government created the Farm Security Administration to help impoverished farmers get on their feet. One of the FSA’s most notable efforts was its small team of documentary photographers, who travele…
The South Fork Dam was built between 1838 and 1853 by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to provide water for the operation of the Western Division of the Pennsylvania Mainline Canal between Johnstown and Pittsburgh. Though the dam had been built according t…
The idea of creating a monumental sculpture in the Black Hills was first suggested in 1923 by South Dakota state historian Doane Robinson, who had envisioned creating likenesses of famous Native American and American Old West personalities on a needlelike …
On September 16, 1920, as hundreds of Wall Street workers headed out for lunch, a horse-drawn wagon parked in front of J. P. Morgan Bank — the world’s most powerful banking institution. Inside the wagon, 100 pounds (45 kg) of dynamite with 500 pounds (230 …
The 1977 blackout that hit New York was a crisis that came amidst a sweltering heat wave, a financial downturn, rising poverty and inequality and an atmosphere of gloom that had already settled on the city. The 25 hour outage began around 9:30 p.m. on J…
In the 1950s and 1960s, there existed a 'parallel world' of American advertising where mainstream brands targeted the African-American middle and upper classes in lead magazines such as Ebony and Jet. These ads never ran in wider society and show a very diff…
It’s hard to believe it, for a brief period of 6 years, it was possible to mail a baby or small child through the U.S. Postal Service. Yeah, you heard it right, it was legal to mail a baby in the United States and it happened more than once and by all acco…
The 1.5 million Union and perhaps 600,000 Confederate veterans were very visible members of post-war society. For one thing, they dominated political offices in both the North and the South. Most U. S. presidents during this period had fought for the Union…
In the early 1900s child labor was still extremely common in the United States. All across the nation children would spend their days slaving away in mines and cotton mills, far away from the school rooms that the National Child Labor Committee wanted them…
The Amphicar was manufactured in West Germany and first made an appearance in America at the 1961 New York Auto Show. Originally designed by Hanns Trippel, these amphibious cars hit the US market from 1961 to 1967. Most notable for their ability to cruise …
After the Civil War, former slaves sought jobs, and planters sought laborers. The absence of cash or an independent credit system led to the creation of sharecropping which was a system agricultural labor in the South. In this article we've collected a few…
In 1949, Victor Hoeflich held a press conference to introduce the "Man from Mars, Radio Hat". Hoeflich knew a picture would tell the story so he had several teenagers modeling the radio hats for the reporters and photographers. Soon pictures and news stori…
When an earthquake ripped through Santa Monica on March 10, 1933, the city was already in bad shape. The quiet community on the Pacific coast had prided itself in being socially elite and culturally refined, but that pride hadn’t stopped the Great Depressi…
The early 1920s were the gilded age for the Ku Klux Klan, as many successful and powerful people were either openly Klansmen or sympathetic to the cause. The organization boasted a membership of 3 million nationwide, including prominent community leaders f…