LIFE.com

LIFE.com was an archival photography site dedicated to spotlighting the excellence and breadth of the photojournalism practiced by LIFE photographers between 1936 and 1972, focusing on the magazine's coverage of everything from World War II and the Civil Rights Movement to Vietnam, the Space Race, science, politics, technology, sports, the arts, Hollywood, pop culture and everything else under the sun. Posting at least one new gallery a day, LIFE.com contextualized breaking news; engaged in the current national dialog around issues that affect Americans and people around the globe; brought to light photographs and stories that are long-forgotten or, frequently, that never ran in LIFE magazine; celebrated legendary photographers (Eisenstaedt, Bourke-White, W. Eugene Smith, Ralph Morse, Paul Schutzer and others) who were on staff at LIFE, as well as lesser known masters (Nina Leen, Michael Rougier, Grey Villet, Bill Ray, et al.) whose work deserves rediscovery; revealed the stories behind some of the most iconic and moving images of the 20th century -- often in the words of the men and women who made the pictures; and illuminated, through deep archival research, interviews and a thoroughly contemporary editorial voice and vision, the way in which LIFE magazine's photographers and writers not only chronicled the signal events and people of the mid-20th century, but often helped -- sometimes consciously, sometimes inadvertently -- to shape that history.