The 1940s was a time when no one gave much thought to sunscreen and you could happily chain-smoke cigarettes and drink cocktails while you tanned, without so much as a thought to the health consequences. In 1948 the Senator Hotel in Atlantic City installed sunlamps in the ceilings so its patrons could tan, even when(…)
Photos taken at the McConnell Air Hostess School which trained air hostesses for TWA in the 1940s. The training included learning the correct way to serve drinks, dealing with inebriated passengers and even learning how to change nappies (did Air Hostesses used to do that?). Even more surprisingly they are also pictured having chewing gum(…)
The airship industry effectively died with the Hindenburg disaster of 1937, but for 80 or so years previously the dream of lighter-than-air travel had gradually been becoming a reality. The sight of airships were becoming less of a novelty and were seen in the sky’s across Europe and North America. In truth though, by the(…)
More and more smokers are becoming social pariahs. They have to stand on the street in the rain outside restaurants, bars, pubs and even their own cars (if their kids are inside). And while I don’t mind this, being a non-smoker, it does strike me as strange that in years gone by smoking was seen(…)
I’ve often wondered how enormous monuments such as Mount Rushmore are created. Having said that, even having seen these photos I’m not sure how teams of people suspended in wooden crates chiselled perfect faces out of a mountainside, especially back in the 1920s. Building work took place from 1927 until 1941 with some 400 workers(…)
1928 was an interesting turning point in 1920s fashion. The boyish figure of the mid 1920s was starting to become more feminine again with female curves starting to re-emerge from androgyny. The tubular flattening underwear of earlier in the decade was becoming more forgiving (or at least more womanly in shape), and once again women(…)
Tomorrow Queen Elizabeth II overtakes Queen Victoria as the longest serving monarch in British History. I was born in the 1970s so she’s always seemed very much an older woman to me, so I thought it might be nice to see some photos of her as a young woman. I particularly love the photos of(…)
If I had to make a movie of a Thomas Hardy novel,I would definitely choose ‘Far From the Madding Crowd‘, especially since I had to study ‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles‘ at school and it was incredibly depressing. Luckily for me, I don’t have to make the movie myself to enjoy a good slice of on-screen(…)
I love the idea of collating images which give a real flavour of what a place was like at a point in time. All of the photos below were taken in Paris in 1926. They range from Josephine Baker dancing at the Folies-Bergère, to photos of buildings, shop windows, fashions and bridges along with some(…)
Wow, you’d certainly need a head for heights to do this job! Back in 1908-9 when the Manhattan bridge was under construction there was no such thing as health and safety. You could wander the boards of the half-built bridge with your camera snapping photos of the workers without any questions being asked at all…(…)
I visited the Wedding Dresses (1775-2014) exhibition at the V&A last week. It was a fantastic display of bridal fashions ranging from incredibly wide 1700s dresses which would make you turn sideways to get through doorways (I explained that really badly, I mean this kind type of thing), to modern day celebrity wedding dresses. The(…)
Olga Spessivtseva was one of the foremost Russian ballerinas of the early 20th Century. She traveled the world to rave reviews in a career which spanned from 1913 to 1939 before succumbing to mental illness and becoming an inmate of the Hudson River Asylum for the Insane. Often billed as Olga Spessiva (her name was(…)
I came across this amazing collection of photographs on Flickr yesterday and was totally captivated by them. The photographer was Costică Acsinte, a Polish Romanian war photographer during WW1 and afterwards. These photos all seem to have been taken around 1940 and are a real mixture: some are of military personnel, some are posed photo(…)
I thought this photo was delightful, there’s something delicious about seeing little glimpses back in time. It looks like neither these women nor the ships officer knew this photo was being taken and I love the way the ladies are both trying to stop their skirts from flying up in the breeze. It’s so much(…)
Did you realize Sherlock Holmes was inspired by a real person? Nope, me neither! Apparently Arthur Conan Doyle (above right) based the fictional character of Sherlock on a doctor he knew called Joseph Bell (above left). Bell was known for his powers of deduction and even helped police with investigations in Scotland. Doyle met Bell,(…)
Miss Fernande was arguably the very first photographic pin up star. Born during the 1890s in Paris, the lovely Fernande was a model and prostitute who posed for nude and semi-nude photographs for photographer Jean Agelou during the 1910s and 20s. Her exact identity remains a mystery. Only ever known by the moniker ‘Miss Fernande’(…)
Frankly, an artistic arrangement of dead snakes doesn’t really say Happy Christmas to me, but clearly it did to somebody. This photos if from a Christmas card back in 1910. I don’t have much information about it except that it was Harry Dewey’s Christmas card and the photo was taken in Big Cypress Swamp, Florida.(…)
So, it’s Boxing Day and I’m sitting here (eating chocolates) waiting for it to snow. Apparently we are due to get snow tonight, but I fully expect to wake up in the morning and see cold grey drizzle rather than a beautiful white blanket covering everything. We didn’t have any snow last winter at all,(…)