Hot Dog Sizzler, an Auto Oven Cooks Hot Dogs From the 1950s
Want a hot dog on the road? Just plug this heater into your car’s electrical system. This 12 volt electric cooker could cook two wieners at the same time in three to five minutes in your car! Continue reading »
Cool Pics That Capture Naughty Ladies of the 1950s
A cool photo collection that shows what naughty ladies looked like in the 1950s. They were probably funny but rebellious. Continue reading »
Rare Photos of A Young and Then Still-Unknown Marylin Monroe Hiking in The Woods, 1950
Ed Clark/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images/Mashable/Wikimedia Commons
These photos were taken in 1950 by Life Magazine photographer Ed Clark who got a call from a friend at 20th Century Fox about a “hot tomato” the studio had just signed. Continue reading »
Rare and Fascinating Historical Photos of Pasta Production From the 1920s to 1950s
A worker hangs pasta to dry in a factory in Italy. 1932.
Bettmann/Getty Images/Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis
Pasta is an integral part of Italy’s food history. Wherever Italians immigrated they have brought their pasta along, so much so that today it can be considered a staple of international cuisine. Continue reading »
Vintage Pictures of Snow King Chairlifts without Any Safety Bars that Look Very Unsafe, 1950-1970
Mashable/Wikimedia Commons/Flickr/Snow King Mountain Winter Resort
These vintage photographs of Snow King chairlifts taken between the 1950s and 1970s show people riding in a very unsafe way without deploying any safety bars or other protections. Continue reading »
Stunning Vintage Photographs of San Francisco’s Sky Tram, 1955-1961
From late 1955 to 1966, an aerial tram ran from the Cliff House to Point Lobos. Continue reading »
Vintage Photographs of Women Flaunting the Inflatable Bras to Look Like Marilyn Monroe in 1952
Four models show how to use the Trés Secrete bra, developed by La Resista Corset Co. in Connecticut.
Mediadrumimages/TopFoto
These amazing images, which were discovered by TopFoto in their extensive archives, have revealed the post-World War Two invention of inflatable bras as women strived to look like Marilyn Monroe in 1952. Continue reading »
Unique House for the Atomic Age from 1953
Fireplace in front yard is built into side of hill. Lava appearance of hill comes from stippled Gunite.
In 1953, a swimming pool that became an automatic decontamination bath during an A-bomb attack was one of the features of a home that Hal B. Hayes, Hollywood contractor, was completing for himself. In the hillside next to the swimming pool he’s building an underground sanctuary that you reach by diving into the pool. Continue reading »
Playboy Magazine Covers in The 1950s Are Not What You Imagined Them to Be
In the 1950s Playboy was hardly puritanical (by modern standards, of course). If there was any nudity, it was only the most charmingly innocent and conventional. The covers in general exhibited photos that would make one think this was a magazine for giovial housewives or photo-collage lovers. Continue reading »
Vintage Found Photos of ’50s Young Girls in Swimsuits
These vintage photos were found by Steven Martin that show young girls in swimsuits from the 1950s. The post-war economic boom meant that people were not only spending more money they also wanted luxurious new styles. This economic boom also resulted in the return of fashion. Continue reading »
Beautiful Advertising Photos of Opel Automobiles From the 1950s
Opel is a German automobile manufacturer which was owned by the American automaker General Motors from 1929 until 2017 and the PSA Group, a predecessor of Stellantis, from 2017 until 2021. Continue reading »
The Albee Rolligon: An Innovative Transport Truck From the 1950s
One of the earliest applications of Albee’s low-pressure tires was this three-roller Dodge Power Wagon. Ground pressure was drastically reduced due to the large ground area in contact with the bags, and the low air pressure (from 2.5 to 6 PSI) in the bags. Continue reading »
Adhesive Bras: The Stick-On Bra Swimsuit that Was Quite Distinctive in 1949
Nina Leen/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images/Mashable.com
In May 1949, Charles L. Langs announced a daring innovation in beachwear: a pair of bra cups a woman could affix to her breasts with an adhesive. His idea was to use individual strapless cups for each breast, backed with specially developed glue. Continue reading »
Dayalets’ Hellish Vitamin Mascots Intended to Promote a Healthy Diet From the 1950s
Nothing really prepares you for the Dayalets. As you can gather from the cover, they were vitamins, but they were so much more: they were vitamins suitable for framing. Continue reading »
An English Student’s Street Photographs of Edinburgh In the 1950s and 1960s
Raeburn Place, Stockbridge, 1965
Robert Blomfield’s photographs take us to Edinburgh between 1957 and 1966. Born in Leeds in 1938, Bloomfield studied medicine in Scotland’s capital. He took pictures for pleasure, recording things that caught his eye. Never exhibited during his lifetime, once his prints were dry, Robert would be put them into their yellow Kodak boxes. Continue reading »
Wake Up Little Susie: Vintage Photos That Show Styles of Teenagers in the 1950s
The term ‘teenager’ was first introduced to the American public in the 1940s as a moniker coined by advertising executives looking to sell their products to a new audience. Continue reading »
“Blow Up to Be the Size You Want!” – Vintage Inflatable Bra Ads From the 1950s and 1960s
What was a woman to do if she wanted to boost her cleavage in the days before Wonderbra was on the market and the more drastic measure of plastic surgery wasn’t so readily available? The answer is by wearing an inflatable bra that the wearer could blow up to the size they desired themselves. Continue reading »
Vintage Family Photos of BMW Automobiles and Their Owners
A fellow experiencing tyre trouble with a BMW 3/15 PS on a gravel road in a forest in wintertime. The car is registered in the former German state of Oldenburg, circa 1930
Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, commonly referred to as BMW, is a German multinational corporate manufacturer of luxury vehicles and motorcycles headquartered in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. The corporation was founded in 1916 as a manufacturer of aircraft engines, which it produced from 1917 until 1918 and again from 1933 to 1945. Continue reading »
Gorgeous Photos of American Actress and Model Joan Staley in the 1950s and ’60s
Born 1940 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, American actress and model Joan Staley joined The Little Theater in Hollywood with roles in The Robe, Fiona in Brigadoon, and My Sister Eileen with actress Jo Anne Worley. This led to small roles in live television, such as Playhouse 90, Climax!, and Westinghouse Studio One. These appearances opened the door for her in film and television. Continue reading »
Beautiful Photos That Defined ’50s Women’s Swimsuits
The post-war economic boom meant that people were not only spending more money they also wanted luxurious new styles. This economic boom also resulted in the return of fashion. Continue reading »
1953 Beverly Hills Session Sadness: The Last Photographs of Marilyn Monroe Taken by Andre de Dienes
This session was to be the last one between Marilyn Monroe by Andre de Dienes, even though he asked to take photos of her several years later. Marilyn suffered from insomnia throughout her adult life. One night yet again in 1953 when she couldn’t sleep she called Andre de Dienes who came and took these poignant photos. Continue reading »
Portraits of a Young Elizabeth Taylor Taken by Peter Basch on the Set of ‘Giant’ in 1955
Giant is an epic Western drama film that follows the family of a Texas cattle rancher over the course of 25 years. Bick Benedict Jr. (Rock Hudson) falls in love and marries socialite Leslie Lynton (Elizabeth Taylor) from Maryland. Leslie struggles with adjusting to Bick’s family and the Texan culture. Meanwhile, Bick’s nemesis Jett Rink (James Dean) falls for Leslie and things take a turn for the worse. Continue reading »
Vintage Photos of Ugly Restaurants in the USA From the Mid-20th Century
The 1950s was a truly unique moment in time. Fresh out of World War II, the world – and North America in particular – were embracing prosperity and a strong economy, built and spurred on by the war. Continue reading »
Beautiful Photos of the 1953 Studebaker Commander Starliner
Introduced as a 1953 model, the new Studebakers again stunned onlookers and competitors with its radical styling. The long and lean two-door coupe was undeniably the star of the show, while the hastily designed four-door sedan was somewhat ungainly in comparison. Continue reading »
Vintage Photos Show What Kids Used to Do For Fun in the 1950s
For contemporary children, it may be difficult to imagine kids having fun in the 1950s. Not only were there were no video games, even children’s television programming operated at a bare minimum, with the medium still in its infancy at that time. Continue reading »
