Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Great links: Shorpy Higginbotham

For as much time as I spend on the Internet, I have no idea how I had never stumbled upon Shorpy.com until about a month ago.

The amazing website features thousands of high-definition vintages photos dating as far back as the 1850s. By "high definition," it means the following: "Most of the photos on this site were extracted from reference images (high-resolution tiffs, 20 to 200 megabytes in size) from the Library of Congress research archive."

The site is named after Shorpy Higginbotham, a teenage coal miner who lived 100 years ago. Several photos of Shorpy are featured, and they did some genealogical research to determine his sad fate.

You can lose yourself for hours on Shorpy.com, marveling at and pouring over the details of the vintage photos. Categories include vehicles, Civil War, factories, railroads, sports, World War II and many more.

Here are small versions of photos from one category I particularly enjoy -- stores. (Click on the photos to be taken to the high-resolution versions housed on Shorpy.com.)

Above: This storefront was photographed in Altheimer, Arkansas, in September 1938 for the Farm Security Administration. Check out the cat!


Above: This is the inside of a Super Giant supermarket in Rockville, Maryland, taken in 1964.


Above: And this is another Farm Security Administration photo, taken at a "country store on a dirt road" in Gordonton, North Carolina, in July 1939.

1 comment:

  1. I used to shop in that Super Giant as they were called back then. We lived in Rockville for about a year around 1967-1968. Those Super Giants were all over the DC metro area and had clothing and gift sections that sold, among other items, a zillion pairs of jeans just when they were becoming all the rage to be worn by others besides rednecks, farmers & hillbillies! Giant eventually got out of the clothing business but the stores remained Super Giants for many more years. When area liquor laws changed those retail spaces were taken over by beer and wine products. There were two Super Giants in Rockville and I would shop in one or the other. The larger one was demolished and replaced by a much larger store. Not sure about the smaller one. Did you notice the blue frocks the checkers are wearing, those very large cash registers and the brown paper bags? No "paper or plastic" or scanners in those days! JO

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