A selection of interesting and unusual photos from the USA (21 photos)

You can pore over history books to please your teachers, but nothing compares to historical photographs that vividly show both the wonders and horrors of the past. This collection of images captures unique moments in American life throughout the 20th century.





A Dakota woman carries firewood on her back through the snow. USA, 1909.



Photographer: Edward Sheriff Curtis

An immigrant family looks out over the New York City skyline, 1925.





In the early 20th century, Ellis Island in New York Harbor became a symbol of hope, dreams, and a new beginning for millions of immigrants arriving in the United States. Situated at the southern tip of Manhattan, it operated as America's premier immigration station, handling over 12 million people between 1892 and 1954. The island officially opened as an immigration center on January 1, 1892, and was operating at full capacity by the early 1900s. It was in the early decades of the 20th century that the flow of immigrants peaked, with over a million people passing through Ellis in some years. People came from all over the world: from Italy, Ireland, Poland, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and other countries, fleeing poverty, persecution, war, and famine.

Aquaballet. Florida, USA, 1950.



A car in Kapoho, Hawaii, is almost completely buried by pumice from a nearby volcano, 1959.



Photographer: John Titchen

Kilauea is the youngest of the Hawaiian Islands' land volcanoes and one of the most active in the world. Between August and December 1959, a massive eruption occurred in the Kilauea Iki crater, sending giant fountains of lava and ash up to 580 meters high.

A picnic on the edge of the Palouse River Canyon in Washington State, 1920s.



A heavily tattooed chest and arms of a worker at the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Company, 1938.



Photographer: Margaret Bourke-White

The first black female bus driver, Mary Wallace. Chicago, USA, 1974.



Mary Wallace, a Chicago native born in 1952, fought for three years to attend the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) bus driver school. All this time, she was rejected - not because of a lack of qualifications, but simply because she was a woman. But her persistence eventually won. In 1974, Wallace became the first female CTA bus driver - breaking through the barriers that existed in the male environment of public transportation. Passengers looked at a woman behind the wheel in surprise: some with interest, others with distrust. As Mary herself recalled, "women greeted me, and men followed me with their eyes." She worked as a driver for 17 years until she was promoted to the position of supervisor, becoming an example for many women who decided to challenge established stereotypes.

Assembling an advertising structure for the Bond department store. New York, USA, 1948.



From 1948 to 1954, Bond Clothes placed a huge sign on the east side of Broadway between 44th and 45th Streets in Times Square in New York City. The sign consisted of almost 2 miles of neon lights and featured two seven-story-tall nude figures, a man and a woman (whose heads are visible in the photograph). During the day, the figures were naked, but at night they were adorned with neon clothing. Between the nude figures was a 27-foot-high (8.2 m) and 132-foot-wide (40 m) waterfall containing 50,000 gallons of recycled water. Below the falls was a 278-foot-long (85 m) lightning bolt sign with a scrolling message. The Bond lightning bolt consisted of over 20,000 light bulbs. Above the falls was a digital clock with the inscription "Every hour 3,490 people shop at Bond." I will post a photo of what it looked like in the comments.

Beauty contestants compete for the title of "Miss Rheingold 1956".



Jeryl Johnson, Hilly Merritt, Gretchen Foster, Carol Tobey, Myrna Fahey, and Maggie Pierce cross their fingers under the crown in 1955. Beer has a reputation for being a working-class drink, but from 1940 to 1965, New York-based Rheingold Beer made the beverage synonymous with elegance, beauty, and modernity. Their Miss Rheingold contest attracted thousands of applicants each year, and the winner represented Rheingold in advertising and at personal events throughout the year. In 1956, Hilly Merritt was the lucky winner.

Cars drive down the Auto Thriller Highway. Los Angeles, California, 1929.



It was designed and built by Harry Roxx of Los Angeles, who called his creation an "auto-thriller." The unique undulating design allowed drivers to take a thrilling ride 2,400 feet (about 730 meters) long. The road, shaped like the letter "U," was designed to allow cars to reach speeds of up to 40 miles per hour (about 64 km/h). At the same time, individual "humps" on the track reached a height of three meters, creating the effect of a real roller coaster on wheels. Plastic house exhibit at Disneyland, 1950s.



The Monsanto Plastic House of the Future was a unique attraction at the Tomorrowland theme park in Disneyland (Anaheim, California), which operated from 1957 to 1967. Visitors could take a tour of a futuristic dwelling built entirely of modern plastic materials. The attraction was created to demonstrate the capabilities and versatility of plastic in everyday life, opening up to the public a new vision of the comfortable and technologically advanced life of tomorrow.

A prison camp in Greene County, Georgia, 1941.



Blues musician Buddy Moss plays guitar while his cellmates dance. American blues musician. He is one of two influential Piedmont blues guitarists who recorded between the final Blind Blake sessions in 1932 and the debut of Fuller's Blind Boy in 1935. In 1936, Moss was arrested and tried for the murder of his wife, convicted, and sentenced to prison.

A Fort Bragg construction worker living in a makeshift barracks in Manchester, North Carolina. March 1941.



Photographer: Jack Delano

A representative of the oldest profession in the Storyville district of New Orleans, USA, 1912.



The original Storyville district of New Orleans was a sanctioned red light district that existed from 1897 to 1917 and was located north of the French Quarter. It was known for its brothels and saloons and played a significant role in the early development of jazz music. Today, the area where Storyville once stood is a residential area, and the original neighborhood no longer exists.

Children launch paper airplanes from the roof of a building in New York City, 1968.



Photographer: Kenneth Van Sickle

A boy and his dog fish on a homemade raft, 1952.



Loggers float timber down the Columbia River in Oregon, 1910.



Loggers of those years worked with the simplest tools - without chainsaws and modern technology, they managed to cut down giant trees, the size of which boggles the imagination. Their work was hard, requiring incredible strength, endurance and skill.

Two wigwams and Piegan Indians by the pond. Montana, USA, 1910.



Photographer: Edward Curtis

A wigwam is a semicircular or cone-shaped portable dwelling that has been used for centuries by many Native American peoples of North America, especially the Woodlands tribes. The frame of the wigwam was made of flexible wooden poles driven into the ground and meeting at the top. The base was covered with bark, animal skins, or reed mats. A hole was left at the top for smoke, and the entrance was covered with a skin or canopy. The inside of the teepee was warm and cozy — a fire in the center heated the space, and the structure provided good ventilation and protection from rain and wind.

A man arrested for dressing as a woman. USA, 1939.



Photographer: Arthur Fellig

USA, 1970s.



Photographer: Don Hudson