Mobsters Hide their Faces at Al Capone's Trial, 1947

Mobsters Hide Their Faces At Al Capone's Trial, 1947. The scene dates to 1947, a detail that changes how you read every face and object in the frame.

The first half of the 1940s was consumed by the Second World War, the largest conflict in human history, and photography went to war with it — small 35mm cameras and wire services meant pictures from the front could reach newspaper readers within days.

What makes everyday photographs like this one compelling is the details at the edges: the clothes, the signs, the tools, the postures. They preserve texture that history books flatten out.