Odds and Ends.

Child labor; Cuban Missile Crises; Old Los Angeles; Finland; George Wallace; Robert Mueller; Lincoln; USS Pueblo in North Korea; Iowa farmers.

These photos of Henry, age 6, and his sister, Hilda, age 3, were taken in 1915 by investigative photographer Lewis Hine in a Wisconsin sugar beet field. Hine was then employed by the Nat. Child Labor Committee, a non-profit that led efforts to enact federal restrictions on the use of child labor. But despite the passage of federal protections for child workers in 1938, current federal laws allow children under 12 to perform nonhazardous work on small farms outside of school hours with parental consent. As a result, young children commonly work on the small tobacco farms of KY, TN, NC and VA. Little Henry told Hine, as he posed for his photo, that "I don't never git no rest."

U-2 surveillance photo taken by USAF Maj. Richard S. Heyser over Cuba on Oct. 14, 1962, depicting the construction of Soviet SS-4 medium range nuclear missile installations. These Soviet missiles had a potential range that included many major US cities. McGeorge Bundy, Pres Kennedy’s national security advisor, brought this photo to Kennedy’s White House bedroom early on the morning of Oct 16. Subsequent U-2 surveillance flights would photograph an SS-5 intermediate range ballistic missile site and Il-28 bombers. On Oct. 18, Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko [on the right end of the sofa] met with Kennedy in the Oval Office and claimed the Soviet installations in Cuba were intended to augment Cuba’s defensive capabilities and aid its economy. Kennedy spoke to the nation on television on Oct. 22, announcing "unmistable evidence" of Soviet offensive missiles in Cuba, and fear of an imminent nuclear war swept the globe. The Cuban Missile Crisis would end on Oct. 28, with Soviet Chairman Khrushchev's order to withdraw the missiles from Cuba. Years later, the US would learn that, in addition to the missiles, the USSR had positioned 40,000 Soviet troops on the island.

Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, looking east from Beachwood Ave near Gower St, 1900. Cahuenga Pass Road at Whitely, looking north, 1901.

FInnish defenders in the 105-day Winter War against invading Soviet forces, 1940. On the left, a Laplander who served as a sniper. On the right, an infantry ski platoon. While the badly out-gunned Finns lost the war and were forced to cede part of their eastern territory to the Soviets, the poor performance of the Soviet army in Finland is said to have encouraged Hitler to launch Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi invasion of the USSR, in 1941.

Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach confronts Alabama Governor George Wallace at the doorway of Foster Auditorium, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, June 11, 1963. Wallace had defied a federal court order to allow Black students to register at the university. After President Kennedy dispatched National Guard troops to the campus to enforce the court order, Wallace relented, and Black students Vivian Malone and James Hood were permitted to enter the building to complete student registration. Kennedy addressed the nation on television that evening, announcing that he would send civil rights legislation to Congress. The legislation, largely writen by Katzenbach, would be passed after his death and signed into law by Pres Johnson.

Marines involved in Operation Scotland II in South Vietnam, December 1968, an operation in which Lt. Robert Mueller participated. Mueller received several awards and commendations for his service in Vietnam. His commandiing officer, shown above, had the nickname "Stormy."

This blurred old photo held in the National Archives was long a mystery. But expert analysis in 2014 determined that it was taken by Mathew Brady as Abraham Lincoln’s casket, carried on a large, black hearse, passed in front of Grace Church, on Broadway in New York City, in the mid-afternoon of Tuesday, April 25, 1865. Brady’s New York studio was loca…