The Plague Of Overweight: Photographer Martha Holmes Documented The Struggle Of Obesity People In 1950s America
“Bulging at beach in 1949, 197-pound Dorothy Bradley self-consciously leaves locker room for swim. She covered up embarrassment by being jolly and gregarious”.
Martha Holmes/Time & Life Pictures
“The most serious health problem in the U.S. today is obesity.” Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? But that pronouncement about obesity’s primacy in the hierarchy of national health problems is not new. Rather, it’s the opening line to a remarkable article published 60 years ago in LIFE magazine. This photographs made by Martha Holmes to illustrate that March 1954 article, titled “The Plague of Overweight.” Continue reading »
Beautiful Retro & Romance Fashion Photography By Jerry Schatzberg
On a tricycle, photographer William ‘Bill’ Helburn peddles Italian actress and model Elsa Martinelli, who rides in an attached cart, across Park Ave South, New York, 1954.
Jerry Schatzberg is notably known for his iconic and intimate portraits of famous figures, for example, the defining cover of Blonde and Blonde featuring a scowling Bob Dylan. However, before that sudden switch, Schatzberg was a fashion photographer, trained by the famous Alexey Brodovitch. Here are some of his shots taken for magazines such as Vogue, Esquire, Glamour and McCall’s during the ‘50s and ‘60s. Continue reading »
Wonderful Black And White Photos Of Rome In The Post-WWII
Rome developed greatly after the war as part of the “Italian economic miracle” of post-war reconstruction and modernisation in the 1950s. During this period, the years of la dolce vita (“the sweet life”), Rome became a fashionable city, with popular classic films such as Ben Hur, Quo Vadis, Roman Holiday and La Dolce Vita filmed in the city’s iconic Cinecittà film studios. Continue reading »
Dressed Cats: Postcards From The 1950’s By Artist Eugen Hartung Published By Alfred Mainzer, Inc.
From the 1940s through the 1960s, the Alfred Mainzer Company of Long Island City, NY published a series of linen and photochrome humorous cat postcards illustrated by Eugen Hartung (or Hurtong) (1897–1973), sometimes referred to as “Mainzer Cats”. Continue reading »
Wonderful Color Pics Document The Trailer Life Of An American Family During The 1950s
Picnic by the side of the road, 1953
These wonderful pics from Leon Reed were taken by his father Walter Reed that documented the trailer life of his family around the United States during the 1950s. Continue reading »
Traveller’s Joy – The Key To The Countryside – Beautiful Shell Adverts From The Mid-1950s
From the 1920s and into the 1950s the Shell Oil Company produced some wonderful advertising posters and some said, the most beautiful the country has ever seen.
1954: Arranged and painted by Edith and Rowland Hilder
Looking at these examples from the mid-fifties it’s difficult to argue. It was a different time and the adverts, mostly shown in up-market magazines such as Country Life, show us a view of Britain as a lost rural idyl while, somewhat ironically, promoting not only petrol and oil but motoring in general and where it could take you. It was only Shell petrol and diesel that could give you the exhilarating pleasure and joyous freedom of the countryside. Continue reading »
BMW Isetta: The Iconic Miniature Bubble Car Of Automotive History
The Isetta is an Italian-designed microcar built under license in a number of different countries, including Argentina, Spain, Belgium, France, Brazil, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Because of its egg shape and bubble-like windows, it became known as a bubble car, a name also given to other similar vehicles. Continue reading »
Concepts From Future Past: Cool Pics Of The 1951 Buick LeSabre Concept Car
The LeSabre was the brainchild of GM Design Chief Harley Earl. The design reflected his attempt to merge the modern jet aircraft into the style of the automobile. Jets symbolized the very latest design and engineering and Earl’s ideas transcended into the LeSabre concept. Continue reading »
Sublime Street Photographs Of Hong Kong In The 1950s And 1960s
Hong Kong is all about the food. The smell of delicious stuff, some of it unidentifiable only to Bellamists and delving biology professors and coroners, hangs in air so soupy and thick it seems to be keeping the new skyscrapers upright. I’m wrong, of course. Hong Kong is all about human life, which is everywhere, packed tightly and possessed of an atavistic self-containment – the closest thing modern humanity has to Babel, Jericho or maybe Sodom. Continue reading »
Hilarious Snaps Show Halloween Costumes In The 1950s And ‘60s
Need to find an impressive Halloween outfit? Just check out these snaps to see. Here below is a hilarious photo collection that shows people in their Halloween costumes in the 1950s and 1960s. Continue reading »
Publicity Photos Of Marilyn Monroe Playing The Ukulele For “Some Like It Hot” In 1959
In 1959, near the end of her extraordinary career, Marilyn Monroe starred in Some Like It Hot, widely considered one of the greatest film comedies of all time. Continue reading »
Glamorous Photos Of Marilyn Monroe Photographed By Ed Clark In 1950
Born 1911 in Nashville, Tennessee, American photographer Ed Clark worked primarily for Life magazine. His best remembered work captured a weeping Graham W. Jackson, Sr. playing his accordion as the body of the recently deceased President Franklin D. Roosevelt was being transported to Washington, DC. Continue reading »
A Car For The Jet Age: Cool Pics Of The 1956 Oldsmobile Golden Rocket
The 1950s was a rememberred decade in many things. From the boom of culture and fashion to the unique inventions of cars, especially the 1956 Oldsmobile Golden Rocket. Continue reading »
Amazing Vintage Color Photos Of Trailer Parks In The United States From Between The 1950s And 1960s
The first examples of mobile homes can be traced back to the roaming bands of gypsies who traveled with their horse-drawn mobile homes as far back as the 1500s. Continue reading »
This 1958’s General Motors Firebird III Looks Like A Future Spaceship
The Firebird III was by far the most intriguing and influential of the Motorama Firebirds. Built in 1958, it was the only member of the Firebird trio to have any direct impact on the design of General Motors production vehicles. The 1959 Cadillac featured some of the Firebird III’s surface development and its severe rocker panel tuck-under. The 1961 Caddy picked up the Firebird’s rear skegs – those stubby little fins that hung down off the bottoms of the rear fenders. Continue reading »
Paolo Di Paolo Captured Spectacular Photos Of Italy In The 1950s And 60s
Viareggio in 1959.
The “Paolo Di Paolo: Lost World” exhibition presents more than 250 largely unseen images from the photographer’s archive. Di Paolo chronicled life in his country as an economic boom followed the destruction of the second world war. Although those were the years of la dolce vita he was an anti-paparazzo – he shunned the salacious and respected his subjects. The exhibition is at MAXXI, the National Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome until 30 June. Continue reading »
The Craft Of Ladies’ Hairdressing: Cool Pics That Show Unique Hairdos Of The ’50s Ladies
A selection of photographs from the section ‘Competition Hairdressing’ of the book The Craft of Ladies’ Hairdressing (1959) by S.G. Flitman. Continue reading »
Extraordinary Black And White Photographs Of London In The Early 1950s
Between 1949 and 1953, Robert Frank continually returned to Europe from his new home in New York to take photographs in France, Switzerland, Spain, and Great Britain, photographs that show the development of his uniquely humanist, poetic, and realist eye. Continue reading »
Amazing Examples Of The Live-Action Reference Filmed For Disney’s “Cinderella” In 1950 As You’ve Never Seen Before
A lot of you have probably seen the live action version of Cinderella that came out in 2015. Well long before Lily James took on the role, another actress played Cinderella at the Walt Disney Studios, Helene Stanley. Continue reading »
“Les Amies de Place Blanche”: Captivating Portraits Of Paris Transsexuals In The 1950s
Originally published in 1983, Les Amies de Place Blanche (Ladies of the Place Blanche) focuses on the transsexual community living around the Place Blanche district of Paris in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The book established Christer Strömholm’s reputation as one of the leading photographers of the twentieth century. Continue reading »
Stunning Photos Show Mercedes-Benz 190 SL’s Assembly Line In February 1958
The Mercedes-Benz 190 SL is a two-door luxury roadster produced by Mercedes-Benz between May 1955 and February 1963. Internally referred to as W121, it was first shown in prototype at the 1954 New York Auto Show, and was available with an optional removable hardtop. Continue reading »
“Choose Your Retro Haircut!”: Hair Style Selections From The 1950s-1980s
Date-bait, The Perfecto, Wethead, The Dry Look, The Proto-Mullet, the Forward-Combed Boogiie and many more vintage hair dos and hair don’ts… Let’s have a look through some vintage barbershop and hair salon guides and see how folks were sculpting their hair in decades past. Continue reading »
The Art Of Mass Surveillance: All 135 Vintage NSA Security Posters From The 1950s And 1960s
In the 1950s and 1960s the National Security Agency (NSA) cranked out beautiful and captivating posters to remind Americans that keeping secrets was important. Continue reading »
Griffin Microsheen Used To Have Some Interesting Shoe Polish Ads In The 1950s
The 1950s were an innocent time in America as far as mainstream advertising went. But one campaign was quite racy. The Griffin Microsheen ads were for men’s shoe polish. But nary a man’s face and rarely a man’s foot ever made an appearance in the campaign. All the ads are from the mid- to late-1950s. Continue reading »
Beautiful Life Of Amsterdam In The 1950s Taken By Kees Scherer
Amsterdam, beautiful city built on pilings. An inexhaustible source of subject matter for innumerable photographers. Not that it’s such a megalomaniac capital – it’s more of a village with urban traditions. But it’s that smallness which often provides photography with the impact and attention it deserves. Continue reading »
