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This is a photograph of John Eugene Harmon in his uniform, upon returning home from military service during World War I. A member of Company C, Sixth Engineers, he had been wounded during the Battle of Amiens in 1918 and recovered in France. Back…

Groups of depositors in front of the closed American Union Bank, New York City on April 26, 1931. Opened in 1917, the bank was a relatively small one, with assests of $2 million. Between 1930 and 1933 about 9,000 that ceased operations.

Following an apprenticeship in milling, Charles Sewell Gilbert immigrated from England in his young twenties--initially to Rochester and Penfield. He relocated to Avon in 1855 and purchased an existing mill. His sons later followed him into the…

A popular location for receptions and community events, Wally's was located between Avon and Lima--therefore a convenient gathering place. As this notice of sale elaborates, the building was equipped with a dining room, bar, and outdoor barbecue pit.…

Built on the site of a former Shaker community, the Craig Colony for Epileptics was envisioned as a self-supporting institution when it opened in 1896. Inmates worked in the Shakers' existing farms and blacksmith shops; these new buildings were…

At the popular "Brontosaurus Hall" at the American Museum of Natural History, a young girl sits in preserved footprints of a dinosaur. Note: this image has been croppedS

Undated photo shows two women and two young children in a field, equipped with woven baskets. The crop being harvested probably is potatoes. Given the photo's apparent age and the tools used, it's possible that this dates to the mid-1940s, when…

This idealized diptych appeared in The Genesee Farmer, an agricultural newspaper, showing its readers the clearing of forests so as to create farmland. By the date of publication, settlement and the "Pioneer" figure already was imbued with mythic…

Removal of trees so as to create farmland, and especially the stumps left behind, was an arduous process for European settlers. Although there were complex (and expensive) "patent machines" available, small farmers trying to remove fairly…