Yesterday Today

17 Vintage Photos of Streets in Wales during the 1910s & 1920s

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Severn Estuary to the south-east, the Bristol Channel to the south-west and the Irish Sea to the west and north. It had an estimated population of 3,170,000 in 2020 and has a total area of 20,779 km2 (8,023 sq mi). Wales has over 1,680 miles (2,700 km) of coastline and is largely mountainous with its higher peaks in the north and central areas, including Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa), its highest summit. The country lies within the north temperate zone and has a changeable, maritime climate. The capital and largest city is Cardiff.

Welsh national identity emerged among the Celtic Britons after the Roman withdrawal from Britain in the 5th century, and Wales is regarded as one of the modern Celtic nations. Llywelyn ap Gruffudd’s death in 1282 marked the completion of Edward I of England’s conquest of Wales, though Owain Glyndŵr briefly restored independence to Wales in the early 15th century. The whole of Wales was annexed by England and incorporated within the English legal system under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. Distinctive Welsh politics developed in the 19th century. Welsh Liberalism, exemplified in the early 20th century by David Lloyd George, was displaced by the growth of socialism and the Labour Party. Welsh national feeling grew over the century; a nationalist party, Plaid Cymru was formed in 1925, and the Welsh Language Society in 1962. Welsh devolution gained momentum during the 20th century and following the 1997 Welsh devolution referendum, the Senedd (Welsh Parliament) was formed in 1999, and has gained further devolution since.

At the dawn of the industrial revolution in Wales, development of the mining and metallurgical industries transformed the country from an agricultural society into an industrial nation; the South Wales Coalfield’s exploitation caused a rapid expansion of Wales’ population. Two-thirds of the population live in South Wales, including Cardiff, Swansea, Newport and the nearby valleys. The eastern region of North Wales has about a sixth of the overall population with Wrexham being the largest northern town. The remaining parts of Wales are sparsely populated. Now that the country’s traditional extractive and heavy industries have gone or are in decline, the economy is based on the public sector, light and service industries, and tourism. In livestock farming, including dairy farming, Wales is a net exporter, contributing towards national agricultural self-sufficiency.

Wales closely shares aspects of political and social history with the rest of the UK, and a majority of the population in most areas speaks English as a first language, but the country has a distinct Welsh culture and identity. Both Welsh and English are official languages; Welsh is spoken by 20-30% of the population and 560,000 Welsh-speakers live in Wales. In some parts of the north and west, Welsh is spoken by a majority of the population. From the late 19th century onwards, Wales acquired its popular image as the “land of song”, in part due to the eisteddfod tradition. At many international sporting events, such as the FIFA World Cup, Rugby World Cup and the Commonwealth Games, Wales has its own national team. At the Olympic Games, Welsh athletes compete as part of Team GB. The Wales national rugby union team and the Wales national football team are both expressions of Welsh identity. National rugby games are more heavily supported whilst football enjoys more participation in Wales. (Wikipedia)

**Castle Hotel Rhayader and war memorial**

**J. Palmer’s Humber cycles shop, Newtown**

**Red Lion Inn, Llanfihangel-Nant-Melan**

**Presteign [i.e. Presteigne] Scottleton St A**

(via The National Library of Wales)

20 Amazing Photos Showing the Interior of New York’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in 1903

The original Waldorf-Astoria was among America’s first big hotels. When it was built during the Victorian era, and for years thereafter, it was considered the finest hotel in the world — and it soon became the most famous, for its reputation was carried wherever civilization had spread, and even where only explorers had gone.

The Waldorf–Astoria originated as two hotels, built side-by-side by feuding relatives on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. Built in 1893 and expanded in 1897, the Waldorf–Astoria was razed in 1929 to make way for construction of the Empire State Building. Its successor, the current Waldorf Astoria New York, was built on Park Avenue in 1931.

The original Waldorf Hotel opened on March 13, 1893, at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 33rd Street, on the site where millionaire developer William Waldorf Astor had previously built his mansion. Constructed in the German Renaissance style by Henry Janeway Hardenbergh, it stood 225 feet (69 m) high, with 15 public rooms and 450 guest rooms, and a further 100 rooms allocated to servants, with laundry facilities on the upper floors. It was heavily furnished with European antiques brought back by founding proprietor George Boldt and his wife from an 1892 visit to Europe. The Empire Room was the largest and most lavishly adorned room in the Waldorf, and soon after opening, it became one of the best restaurants in New York City, rivaling Delmonico’s and Sherry’s.

The Astoria Hotel opened in 1897 on the southwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 34th Street, next door to the Waldorf. It was also designed in the German Renaissance style by Hardenbergh, at a height of about 270 feet (82 m), with 16 stories, 25 public rooms and 550 guest rooms. The ballroom, in the Louis XIV style, has been described as the “pièce de résistance” of the hotel, with a capacity to seat 700 at banquets and 1,200 at concerts. The Astor Dining Room was faithfully reproduced from the original dining room of the mansion which once stood on the site.

Connected by the 300 meters (980 ft) long corridor, known as “Peacock Alley” after the merger in 1897, the hotel had 1,300 bedrooms, making it the largest hotel in the world at the time. It was designed specifically to cater to the needs of socially prominent “wealthy upper crust” of New York and distinguished foreign visitors to the city. It was the first hotel to offer electricity and private bathrooms throughout.

**The Royal Suite – Louis Bedroom – The Astoria**

**Fifth Ave Corner Suite – Drawing Room – The Astoria**

**Empire Suite – Bedroom – The Waldorf**

**Empire Suite – Drawing Room – The Waldorf**

**Italian Renaissance Suite – Drawing Room – The Waldorf**

**Reception Room of Astor Dining Room – The Waldorf**

**East India Suite – Drawing Room – The Waldorf**

**The Waldorf State Apartments – Francis I, Bedroom**

**The Waldorf State Apartments – Henry IV, Drawing Room**

**The Waldorf State Apartments – Louis XVI, Music Room**

35 Rare Portrait Photos of Vietnamese People From the 1870s

(Photos by Émile Gsell)

Born 1838 in Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines, Haut-Rhin, French photographer Émile Gsell served in the military from 1858 to 1866, during which time he learned photography and travelled to Cochin China (now Southern Vietnam), becoming the first commercial photographer based in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City).

On the strength of his Cambodian photographs Gsell was awarded a medal of merit at the Vienna International Exhibition, which was held from 1 May to the 31 October 1873 and during which Gsell exhibited two albums of photographs, one of the ruins of Angkor and the other of “the mores, customs, and types of the Annamite and Cambodian populations”.

In April 1875, Gsell accompanied a mission, led by Brossard de Corbigny, to Hu?, though he was not allowed to photograph the people he met nor the Citadel. However, two of his photographs demonstrate that he was in Hanoi at the end of 1875 and from November 1876 to January 1877 Gsell was able to take many views of Tonkin (now Northern Vietnam).

Gsell’s photographs were marketed by Auguste Nicolier, who sold chemicals and photographic supplies in Saigon from 1876.

Émile Gsell died at home in Saigon on 16 October 1879.

Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, is a country in Southeast Asia. Located at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, it covers 311,699 square kilometres. With a population of over 96 million, it is the world’s fifteenth-most populous country. Vietnam borders China to the north, Laos and Cambodia to the west, and shares maritime borders with Thailand through the Gulf of Thailand, and the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia through the South China Sea. Its capital is Hanoi and its largest city is Ho Chi Minh City.

Vietnam was inhabited as early as the Paleolithic age. The first known states during the first millennium BC centered on the Red River Delta, located in modern-day northern Vietnam. The Han dynasty annexed and put Northern and Central Vietnam under Chinese rule from 111 BC, until the first dynasty emerged in 939. Successive monarchical dynasties absorbed Chinese influences through Confucianism and Buddhism, and expanded southward to the Mekong Delta. The Nguy?n—the last imperial dynasty—fell to French colonisation in 1887. Following the August Revolution, the nationalist Viet Minh under the leadership of communist revolutionary Ho Chi Minh proclaimed independence from France in 1945.

Vietnam went through prolonged warfare through the 20th century. After World War II, France returned to reclaim colonial power in the First Indochina War, from which Vietnam emerged victorious in 1954. The Vietnam War began shortly after, during which the nation was divided into communist North supported by the Soviet Union and China, and anti-communist South supported by the United States. Upon North Vietnamese victory in 1975, Vietnam reunified as a unitary socialist state under the Communist Party of Vietnam in 1976. An ineffective planned economy, trade embargo by the West, and wars with Cambodia and China crippled the country. In 1986, the Communist Party initiated economic and political reforms, transforming the country to a market-oriented economy.

The reforms facilitated Vietnamese integration into global economy and politics. A developing country with a lower-middle-income economy, Vietnam is one of the fastest growing economies of the 21st century. It is part of international and intergovernmental institutions including the United Nations, the ASEAN, the APEC, the CPTPP, the Non-Aligned Movement, the OIF, and the WTO. It has assumed a seat on the United Nations Security Council twice. Contemporary issues in Vietnam include corruption and a poor human rights record. (Wikipedia)

These rare and amazing photographs Gsell took portraits of Vietnamese people in the 1870s.

**Two wealthy girls from An Nam, 1870s**

**A governor in Cho Lon district, 1870s**

**A wealthy Annamese woman and her daughter, 1870s**

**Portrait of a wealthy family with servant man behind, 1870s**

**A young Chinese man in Saigon, 1870s**

**A young water-carrier in Saigon, 1870s**

**An Annamese man with his umbrella, 1870s**

**Portrait of a Chinese lady in Saigon, 1870s**

**Portrait of a dramatics artist, 1870s**

**Portrait of an Annamese young lady, 1870s**

**Two S’Tieng ethnic men in the Central Highlands, 1870s**

**A rich man in Cochinchina with his horse and servants, 1870s**

**A beautiful Cochinchine woman, 1870s**

**Portrait of two older Annamese men, 1870s**

**A beggar in Cochinchina in the 1870s**

**A group of Annamese upper class in the 1870s**

**An Annamese girl (left) and a Chinese man in the 1870s**

**An Annamese girl (left) standing by a Chinese girl in the 1870s**

**Opium smoking in Saigon in the 1870s**

**Portrait of an Annamese aristocratic woman in the 1870s**

21 Amazing Photos of Videogame Consoles of the 1980s

The 1970s may have been the beginning of home video gaming as we know it. However, it was the 1980s that saw the premature death of the industry and its phoenix-like rise from the ashes. People were tired of PONG and software developers were seriously getting the knack of programming cartridges. Fairchild Semiconductors walked away from what they felt was an industry “fad” and left the Atari Video Computer System (2600) as the cart-based king of the mountain. Atari would pick up the rights to arcade hits such as “Space Invaders” and would become a must have holiday gift. The year was 1980 and Atari became synonymous with home video gaming.

Video gaming, especially arcade titles, became a commercial success. You could see game characters such as Pitfall Harry, Frogger, and Q-bert become televised cartoons. There were even Pac-Man and Donkey Kong breakfast cereals. Many home consoles would rise to challenge Atari’s dominance and earn their market share.

Atari would keep the competition in check by buying licensing rights to most arcade titles and movie tie-ins. Mattel’s Intellivision brought the first real commercialized console war, and arcade clones would be used to get past licensing issues. Some clones such as Lady Bug and Mouse Trap (both Pac-Man clones) became successful in their own right. ColecoVision would pack in an amazing port of Nintendo’s arcade hit Donkey Kong. The gaming market continued to grow at a phenomenal rate and everybody wanted a piece of the action!

49 Vintage Photos Showing Life in Valencia, Spain in 1973

Valencia is the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third-largest city in Spain after Madrid and Barcelona, with 789,744 inhabitants in the municipality. The wider urban area also comprising the neighbouring municipalities has a population of around 1.6 million. Valencia is Spain’s third-largest metropolitan area, with a population ranging from 1.7 to 2.5 million depending on how the metropolitan area is defined. The Port of Valencia is the 5th-busiest container port in Europe and the busiest container port on the Mediterranean Sea. The city is ranked as a Gamma-level global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network.

Valencia was founded as a Roman colony by the consul Decimus Junius Brutus Callaicus in 138 BC and called Valentia Edetanorum. In 714, Moroccan and Arab Moors occupied the city, introducing their language, religion and customs; they implemented improved irrigation systems and the cultivation of new crops as well. Valencia was the capital of the Taifa of Valencia. In 1238 the Christian king James I of Aragon conquered the city and divided the land among the nobles who helped him conquer it, as witnessed in the Llibre del Repartiment. He also created the new Kingdom of Valencia, which had its own laws (Furs), with Valencia as its main city and capital. In the 18th century Philip V of Spain abolished the privileges as punishment to the kingdom of Valencia for aligning with the Habsburg side in the War of the Spanish Succession. Valencia was the capital of Spain when Joseph Bonaparte moved the Court there in the summer of 1812. It also served as the capital between 1936 and 1937, during the Second Spanish Republic.

The city is situated on the banks of the Turia, on the east coast of the Iberian Peninsula, fronting the Gulf of Valencia on the Mediterranean Sea. Its historic centre is one of the largest in Spain, with approximately 169 ha (420 acres). Due to its long history, Valencia has numerous celebrations and traditions, such as the Falles, which were declared Fiestas of National Tourist Interest of Spain in 1965 and an intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO in November 2016. Joan Ribó from Compromís has been the mayor of the city since 2015. (Wikipedia)

20 Incredible Photos of Triumph TR2 Cars

The first of the famous TR series of Triumph sports cars. The TR2 was developed to compete with successful sports car designs from rival manufacturers such as MG and Jaguar.

Triumph was absorbed by the Standard Motor Company in 1944. A decision was made to re-establish the marque as a sports car manufacturer. Following a failed takeover bid for Morgan, a prototype Triumph sports car called the 20TS (subsequently known as the TR1) was displayed at the 1952 Motor Show. This evolved into the TR2, launched in 1953. The TR series became a marketing success throughout in the 1950s and ’60s, selling particularly well in North America.

The car had a 121 cid (1991 cc) four-cylinder Standard wet liner inline-four engine from the Vanguard, fitted with twin H4 type SU Carburettors and tuned to increase its output to 90 bhp (67 kW). The body was mounted on a substantial separate chassis with coil-sprung independent suspension at the front and a leaf spring live axle at the rear. Either wire or disc wheels could be supplied. The transmission was a four-speed manual unit, with optional top gear overdrive. Lockheed drum brakes were fitted all round.

A total of 8,636 TR2s were produced. It was replaced by the TR3 in 1955.

50 Amazing Vintage Photos From the 1950s Volume 8

The 1950s (pronounced nineteen-fifties; commonly abbreviated as the “Fifties” or the ” ’50s”) (among other variants) was a decade that began on January 1, 1950, and ended on December 31, 1959.

Throughout the decade, the world continued its recovery from World War II, aided by the post-World War II economic expansion. The period also saw great population growth with increased birth rates and the emergence of the baby boomer generation. Despite this recovery, the Cold War developed from its modest beginnings in the late 1940s to a heated competition between the Soviet Union and the United States by the early 1960s. The ideological clash between communism and capitalism dominated the decade, especially in the Northern Hemisphere, with conflicts including the Korean War in the early 1950s, the Cuban Revolution, the beginning of the Vietnam War in French Indochina, and the beginning of the Space Race with the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957. Along with increased testing of nuclear weapons (such as RDS-37 and Upshot–Knothole), the tense geopolitical situation created a politically conservative climate. In the United States, a wave of anti-communist sentiment known as the Second Red Scare resulted in Congressional hearings by both houses in Congress. The beginning of decolonization in Africa and Asia also took place in this decade and accelerated in the following decade. (Wikipedia)

**Panorama of London Piccadilly Circus at night, 1958**

**Men with five racing Greyhounds in Steeton, near Keighley, Yorkshire, 1950s**

**Young woman next to a 1959 Nash Rambler station wagon.**

**Cary Grant having fun onstage at the Regal Cinema, Glasgow, July 1958.**

**Marilyn Monroe tries to go shopping while fans and media watch, 1957.**

**Ship canal and Fremont Bridge, Seattle, 1957**

**Tram number 187 on route 16 in Rosario, Santa Fe, Argentina, 1950s.**

**Marilyn Monroe freshens up in a public restroom in Chicago during a publicity tour, 1955.**

**Segregated water fountains in North Carolina, 1950.**

**Atomic bomb testing in the Nevada desert, 1957**

**Horse tram in Douglas, Isle of Man, 1959**

**Terraces on the Diagonal, Barcelona, 1950.**

**Children cross the river using pulleys on their way to school in the outskirts of Modena, Italy, 1959.**

**The parking lot at Venice Beach, 1952**

**Two girl models standing on the roof of a Land Rover in Florence, Italy, 1958**

**Grand café d’Agay, Saint-Raphaël, France, 1950s.**

**Fishermen’s stores, Hastings, East Sussex, 1956.**

**Classic cars in a building yard in Rochester, NYC, 1950s.**

**Brigitte Bardot signs her photograph for a young boy at the Cannes Film Festival in 1956.**

**Juliette Greco assists then boy friend Miles Davis on his horn, Paris, 1954.**

**19 year-old Brigitte Bardot photographed in France at the Cannes Film Festival in 1953.**

**Lauren Bacall, Humphrey Bogart and Marilyn Monroe at the premiere of ‘How to Marry a Millionaire,’ 1955.**

**New York City subway system at rush hour, 1950s.**

**Boy at Llanelwedd School in Builth Wells, Wales, 1952.**

**A llama in Times Square, New York City, 1957.**

**5th Avenue and 60th Street, NYC, 1958.**

**Students at Los Angeles City College gather to read about the campus ban on shorts, 1958.**

**Jimi Hendrix with his first electric guitar in Seattle, 1957.**

**Street scene in Chester, Cheshire, England, 1950s.**

**Girl looking the cityview from a hill in Bath, Somerset, England, 1950s.**

**Street scene in Southern Germany, 1956.**

**Ice Fishing from the ’46 Chrysler New Yorker, Michigan, 1955**

**Kids playing boxing on a street in Toronto, Canada, 1950s.**

**Playing in the snow in the driveway, Warren, Ohio, 1951.**

40 Interesting Photos of Paris in 1942

(Photos by André Zucca)

André Zucca was born in 1897 in Paris, the son of an Italian dressmaker. Zucca spent part of his youth in the United States before returning to France in 1915. Following the outbreak of World War I, he joined the French Army where he was wounded and decorated with the Croix de Guerre. After the war, he began a career as a photographer.

After several foreign reports from 1935 to 1937 (Italy, Greece, Yugoslavia, Japan, China, India, Morocco) alongside fellow journalist Joseph Kessel, he began work for several news publications, including L’Illustration, Paris-Soir, and Match. From September 1939 until the Fall of France in June 1940, he covered the Phony War in the press.

In 1941, he was contracted by the occupying Germans to work as a photographer and correspondent for the magazine Signal, a propaganda organ of the German Wehrmacht. His photography was used to support a positive image of the German occupation in France, as well as to encourage French men to volunteer for the Legion of French Volunteers Against Bolshevism, a collaborationist French militia serving on the Eastern Front. It is disputed whether or not Zucca’s work for the Germans was linked to any ideological sympathies with Nazism, and some have argued he was a right-wing anarchist.

Paris newsstand selling copies of Signal magazine, August 1941
In addition to his contributions to Signal, he was one of the few photographers in occupied-Europe with access to Agfacolor film, a rare and expensive piece of color film at the time, thanks to his close relationship with the Germans. He is most well known today for his color photographs of daily life in Paris under German occupation.

His son Pierre, (fr) a film director, was born in 1943.

Following the liberation, he was placed on trial in October 1944 by the French Provisional Government in the épuration légale (legal purge), where his journalistic privileges were permanently revoked. The court ruled that no further legal action should be taken against Zucca, largely thanks to the credentials of a resistance member who spoke out on his behalf. With his journalism career in shambles, Zucca assumed the name André Piernic and settled in the French commune of Dreux, where he opened a small photo boutique, taking wedding and communion photos. He died in 1973.

His photo collections were purchased by the Bibliothèque historique de la ville de Paris in 1986, consisting primarily of his photos of occupied Paris taken during World War II. In 2008, Éditions Gallimard, a major French publishing house, worked with the city of Paris to organize an exhibition of Zucca’s wartime photographs. The exhibition attracted a great deal of controversy for its portrayal of a seemingly-carefree, wartime Paris. (Wikipedia)

33 Amazing Color Photos From the Netherlands During the Early 20th Century

With photos from the past you automatically think about black and white. Even in our own childhood, almost no color photograph was made. Nevertheless, the technique for making color photographs has been around for more than 100 years!

In 1907, the two French brothers August and Louis Lumière invented a technique with which real color photographs could be made, the Autochrome Lumière. It was a very ingenious process that used glass plates on which a layer of microscopically colored potato starch granules were applied.

The photographs that were taken with them were beautiful and had a dreamy painting-like atmosphere. And now it is possible for us to see the world of more than 100 years ago in the original colors.

These wonderful photographs show how the Netherlands looked in color from the early 20th century.

Assimilate or Die: 14 Vintage Portraits of Native Americans Dressed in European Attire in the Early 20th Century

Forced assimilation is a process of forced cultural assimilation of religious or ethnic minority groups, into an established and generally larger community. This presumes a loss of many characteristics which make the minority different. The Native Americans suffered both ethnic and religious assimilation. The assimilation process took place between the years 1790 and 1920.

George Washington and Henry Knox were the first people to propose americanization of the Native Americans to Euro-American ways. In 1887 the Dawes act was formulated. This act was formulated to “encourage” Native Americans to assimilate. What they used to bribe the Native Americans was citizenship, land and education.

In exchange for these things, the Native Americans had to give their culture and religious views. After the Indian wars were over, it became illegal for Native Americans to practice traditional native american ceremonies. The Native Americans that decided to become citizens were treated unfairly. Their children were taken away from them, and they were sent off to boarding schools. The boarding schools that the Native Americans were sent to, were typically ran by missionaries.

At these boarding schools they were forced to go to church, speak only English, learn standard subjects, and never revisit their old tribal ways. They were given new Euro-American clothing, haircuts, and names.

By 1902, there were more than 25 boarding schools across the nation, and about 6000 Native Americans were enrolled. There are cases of mental, physical, and sexual abuse inflicted on the Native Americans. A quote by Henry Pratt: “A great general has once said, the only good Indian is a dead one, I agree with the sentiment, but only this. Kill the Indian in him and save the man.”

These portraits, made by Smithsonian staff photographers in the early 20th century, are an eye-level view of the assimilation process in action.