Grant Company LLC

Coal-fired logistics. A brakeman gives the "high ball" (all clear) signal during freight train operations on the Chicago and North Western Railroad between Chicago and Clinton, Iowa. Photo by Jack Delano, 1943

Hardscrabble living. A farm scene east of Amherst, Nebraska. Photo by Solomon D. Butcher, 1904.

Four years ago today, we officially launched Grant Company. This morning, Derrick and Christy Collins christened our second office in Richmond, Virginia. Thanks to everyone who's enjoyed our posts -- and to all of our friends, supporters and clients who've made all of this possible.

Brulé war party. Photo by Edward S. Curtis, 1907.

Aggie Nation: A Hereford steer poses at Texas Agricultural and Mechanical College, January 1942. Photo by Arthur Rothstein

In today's crazy pandemic-afflicted world, who first decided handwashing was such a good idea? Ignaz Semmelweis, a Hungarian physician. Working in the maternity ward of Vienna's General Hospital, Semmelweis was appalled by the mushrooms and maggots in piles of damp, dirty sheets, where hospitals were often called "Houses of Death." He identified what he called "cadaverous particles" on a fellow physician's hands during surgery, as doctors didn't wear protective gloves in thos...e days. In April 1847, the mortality rate for new mothers was 18.3% at the hospital. After handwashing was instituted in May, it dropped to 2%. Simmelweis was never able to convince is fellow doctors to permanently institute it on a medicine-wide basis, and died of Alzheimer's Disease in an asylum in 1865. It wasn't until the 1880s that pioneers of germ theory such as Louis Pasteur, Joseph Lister and Robert Koch were able to convince the world that disease really could be transmitted by microscopic particles, leading to a revolution in sanitary practices. See more

Rasp. A cowboy files a horse's hooves, Three Circle roundup, Custer National Forest, Montana, September 1939. Photo by Arthur Rothstein

Faces of the Civil War: U.S. Horse Artilleryman Lieutenant Williston shares a quiet moment with a horse. Photo was taken near Culpeper, Virginia, in September 1863 by James Gardner.