Before cable, VCRs, and streaming, here’s a look at the culture and technology of television in its earlier decades, from the collections at the Library of Congress.

A couple looks at television sets with a sales person at the Woodward & Lothrop department tore in Washington, D.C., August 21, 1958.

Marion S. Trikosko/U.S. News & World Report Magazine Photograph Collection/Library of Congress