Air Hostess Training in the 1940s

Photos taken at the McConnell Air Hostess School which trained air hostesses for TWA in the 1940s.  The training included

Miss Lovely Legs 1949

Curious photos from a Beautiful Legs Contest from 1949.   The pictures raise lots of questions in my mind – aside

Disneyland in the 1950s

You must have heard people say that the 1950s was a time of simpler pleasures, and these pictures of Disneyland

5 Strikingly Modern Victorian Photo Portraits

These beautiful Victorian portraits are a type of early photograph called daguerreotypes.  Invented by Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre in the

How The World Looked When Airships Filled The Sky

The airship industry effectively died with the Hindenburg disaster of 1937, but for 80 or so years previously the dream

A Rather Intriguing (and Ghoulish) Photograph

I stumbled across this photograph this morning and I’m ghoulishly intrigued by it. The only information I have about it

Back When Everybody Smoked…

More and more smokers are becoming social pariahs. They have to stand on the street in the rain outside restaurants,

Building Mount Rushmore, 1940

I’ve often wondered how enormous monuments such as Mount Rushmore are created. Having said that, even having seen these photos

Slenderizing Salons of the 1940s

You thought zumba and ashtanga yoga were torture enough in the pursuit of youth and fitness? Be grateful you didn’t

The First Ever Miss Universe Contest, 1952

It was the lovely Armi Kuusela from Finland who won the first ever Miss Universe contest in 1952*, with Miss

Paris in 1963

I love this series of photos. Some of them could have been taken anywhere during the Sixties: the Mary Quant

Queen Elizabeth II in the 1930s, 40s and 50s

Tomorrow Queen Elizabeth II overtakes Queen Victoria as the longest serving monarch in British History.  I was born in the

The Real Factory Women of Wartime London

These women were all training in various London polytechnics to work in munitions factories during the early 1940s. I’m not

London in 1941

London was a very different city in 1941. Alongside the landmarks we all recognize there were clear signs of the

Snapshot: Paris in 1926

I love the idea of collating images which give a real flavour of what a place was like at a

Building Manhattan Bridge (Without a Safety Harness) 1908

Wow, you’d certainly need a head for heights to do this job!  Back in 1908-9 when the Manhattan bridge was

Photos from a Victorian Mental Asylum

During the 1850s British physician Dr. Hugh Welch Diamond took a series of haunting photographs of mentally ill patients under

V&A Wedding Dress Exhibition

I visited the Wedding Dresses (1775-2014) exhibition at the V&A last week. It was a fantastic display of bridal fashions