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Before local anesthesia could manage the pain, one early 20th century dentist distracted his patients with showgirls and brass bands. Painless Parker found that a bit of the old razzle dazzle not only added enough commotion to keep a person from focusing too much on a tooth pulling, it drew an audience of prospective patients.
Painless Parker with his necklace of teeth; the necklace in the Dental Museum at Temple University.
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Please help us to continue our work bringing you the best in history on a daily basis. The cost of subscriptions to journals, archives and other media is expensive. We also have the added internet costs. You can help us by subscribing to this page for $5 per month or if you like you can make a one-time donation at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/YesterdayToday
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Yesterday Today
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Please help us to continue our work bringing you the best in history on a daily basis. The cost of subscriptions to journals, archives and other media is expensive. We also have the added internet costs. You can help us by subscribing to this page for $5 per month or if you like you can make a one-time donation at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/YesterdayToday
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The Tuskegee Airmen were a group of primarily African American military pilots (fighter and bomber) and airmen who fought in World War II. They formed the 332d Fighter Group and the 477th Bombardment Group (Medium) of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF). The name also applies to the navigators, bombardiers, mechanics, instructors, crew chiefs, nurses, cooks, and other support personnel. The Tuskegee airmen received praise for their excellent combat record earned while protecting American bombers from enemy fighters. The group was awarded three Distinguished Unit Citations.
All black military pilots who trained in the United States trained at Griel Field, Kennedy Field, Moton Field, Shorter Field, and the Tuskegee Army Air Fields. They were educated at the Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University), located near Tuskegee, Alabama. Of the 922 pilots, five were Haitians from the Haitian Air Force and one pilot was from Trinidad. It also included a Hispanic or Latino airman born in the Dominican Republic.
The 99th Pursuit Squadron (later the 99th Fighter Squadron) was the first black flying squadron, and the first to deploy overseas (to North Africa in April 1943, and later to Sicily and other parts of Italy). The 332nd Fighter Group, which originally included the 100th, 301st and 302nd Fighter Squadrons, was the first black flying group. It deployed to Italy in early 1944. Although the 477th Bombardment Group trained with North American B-25 Mitchell bombers, they never served in combat. In June 1944, the 332nd Fighter Group began flying heavy bomber escort missions and, in July 1944, with the addition of the 99th Fighter Squadron, it had four fighter squadrons.
The 99th Fighter Squadron was initially equipped with Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighter-bomber aircraft. The 332nd Fighter Group and its 100th, 301st and 302nd Fighter Squadrons were equipped for initial combat missions with Bell P-39 Airacobras (March 1944), later with Republic P-47 Thunderbolts (June–July 1944) and finally with the aircraft with which they became most commonly associated, the North American P-51 Mustang (July 1944). When the pilots of the 332nd Fighter Group painted the tails of their P-47s red, the nickname “Red Tails” was coined. The red markings that distinguished the Tuskegee Airmen included red bands on the noses of P-51s as well as a red rudder; the P-51B, C and D Mustangs flew with similar color schemes, with red propeller spinners, yellow wing bands and all-red tail surfaces.
The Tuskegee Airmen were the first African-American military aviators in the United States Armed Forces. During World War II, black Americans in many U.S. states were still subject to the Jim Crow laws and the American military was racially segregated, as was much of the federal government. The Tuskegee Airmen were subjected to discrimination, both within and outside of the army. (Wikipedia)
These intimate portraits were taken by Toni Frissell, a high-fashion photographer who volunteered her photographic services to the American Red Cross, Women’s Army Corps, and Eighth Army Air Force during WWII. On volunteering for the American Red Cross in 1941, Frissell said: “I became so frustrated with fashions that I wanted to prove to myself that I could do a real reporting job.” Take a look:
Several Tuskegee airmen attending a briefing in Ramitelli, Italy, March 1945
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In the late 1930s, photographer Helen Levitt rode the New York City subway system, first as an apprentice to photographer Walker Evans, then snapping photos of aloof passengers wearing fur coats, flat-brim hats, and antique brooches.
Yet for the majority of Levitt’s illustrious career (lasting until the 1990s), she ventured out of the underground to document life on Manhattan streets. She captured authentic moments — children playing on the sidewalk or dressing up for Halloween, a group of women gossiping — in neighborhoods including Harlem, the Lower East Side, and the Garment District.
Levitt spoke about her early pictures shot on the streets in the 1930s: “It was a good neighborhood for taking pictures in those days, because that was before television. There was a lot happening. And the older people would be sitting out on the stoops because of the heat. Those neighborhoods were very active.”
The New York Times, in 2009, described her as: “a major photographer of the 20th century who caught fleeting moments of surpassing lyricism, mystery and quiet drama on the streets of her native New York”.
New York, often called New York City (NYC) to distinguish it from the State of New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over 300.46 square miles (778.2 km2), New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the United States. Located at the southern tip of New York State, the city is the center of the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass. With over 20.1 million people in its metropolitan statistical area and 23.5 million in its combined statistical area as of 2020, New York is one of the world’s most populous megacities. New York City is a global cultural, financial, and media center with a significant influence on commerce, entertainment, research, technology, education, politics, tourism, dining, art, fashion, and sports. New York is the most photographed city in the world. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy, an established safe haven for global investors, and is sometimes described as the capital of the world.
Situated on one of the world’s largest natural harbors, with water covering 36.4% of its surface area, New York City is composed of five boroughs, each of which is coextensive with a respective county of the state of New York. The five boroughs—Brooklyn (Kings County), Queens (Queens County), Manhattan (New York County), the Bronx (Bronx County), and Staten Island (Richmond County)—were created when local governments were consolidated into a single municipal entity in 1898.The city and its metropolitan area constitute the premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States. As many as 800 languages are spoken in New York, making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world. New York is home to more than 3.2 million residents born outside the United States, the largest foreign-born population of any city in the world as of 2016. As of 2018, the New York metropolitan area is estimated to produce a gross metropolitan product (GMP) of nearly $1.8 trillion, ranking it first in the United States. If the New York metropolitan area were a sovereign state, it would have the eighth-largest economy in the world. New York is home to the highest number of billionaires of any city in the world.
New York City traces its origins to a trading post founded on the southern tip of Manhattan Island by Dutch colonists in approximately 1624. The settlement was named New Amsterdam (Dutch: Nieuw Amsterdam) in 1626 and was chartered as a city in 1653. The city came under English control in 1664 and was renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, the Duke of York. The city was regained by the Dutch in July 1673 and was renamed New Orange for one year and three months; the city has been continuously named New York since November 1674. New York City was the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790, and has been the largest U.S. city since 1790. The Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the U.S. by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and is a symbol of the U.S. and its ideals of liberty and peace. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a global node of creativity, entrepreneurship, and environmental sustainability, and as a symbol of freedom and cultural diversity.The New York Times has won the most Pulitzer Prizes for journalism and remains the U.S. media’s “newspaper of record”.In 2019, New York was voted the greatest city in the world per a survey of over 30,000 people from 48 cities worldwide, citing its cultural diversity.
Many districts and monuments in New York City are major landmarks, including three of the world’s ten most visited tourist attractions in 2013. A record 66.6 million tourists visited New York City in 2019. Times Square is the brightly illuminated hub of the Broadway Theater District, one of the world’s busiest pedestrian intersections, and a major center of the world’s entertainment industry. Many of the city’s landmarks, skyscrapers, and parks are known around the world, as is the city’s fast pace, spawning the term New York minute. The Empire State Building has become the global standard of reference to describe the height and length of other structures. Manhattan’s real estate market is among the most expensive in the world. Providing continuous 24/7 service and contributing to the nickname The City That Never Sleeps, the New York City Subway is the largest single-operator rapid transit system worldwide, with 472 passenger rail stations; and Penn Station in Midtown Manhattan is the busiest transportation hub in the Western Hemisphere. The city has over 120 colleges and universities, including Columbia University, New York University, and the City University of New York system, which is the largest urban public university system in the United States. Anchored by Wall Street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York City has been called both the world’s leading financial center and the most powerful city in the world, and is home to the world’s two largest stock exchanges by total market capitalization, the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. (Wikipedia)
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William Paul Gottlieb (1917-2006) was an American photographer and newspaper columnist who is best known for his classic photographs of the leading performers of the “Golden Age” of American jazz in the 1930s and 1940s. Gottlieb’s photographs are among the best known and widely reproduced images of this era of jazz.
During the course of his career, Gottlieb took portraits of hundreds of prominent jazz musicians and personalities, typically while they were playing or singing at well-known New York City jazz clubs. Well-known musicians Gottlieb photographed included Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, Dizzy Gillespie, Earl Hines, Jo Stafford, Thelonious Monk, Stan Kenton, Ray McKinley, Benny Goodman, Coleman Hawkins, Louis Jordan, Ella Fitzgerald, Toots Thielemans, and Benny Carter.
These selected photos from his work are portraits of female jazz artists that he took from the 1940s in New York.
Billie Holiday, Downbeat, New York, Feb. 1947
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In 1940, Jackson Doane, of Binghamton, unearthed a packet of letters, a ring and a picture in his family’s attic from Sarah Rosetta Wakeman, the older sister of Jackson’s great-grandmother. She was a family member that seemed to be little spoken about — and little known. In 1976, Jackson read those letters, discovering that they were letters of a woman passing herself off as a man while serving in the Civil War.
Portrait of Sarah Rosetta Wakeman.
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The rollout of General Motors’ broad lineup of “X-Car” compact cars for 1980–which consisted of four separate vehicle lines spread across four brands–was a big event in the American automotive industry. Not surprisingly, GM backed up its ambitious new product initiative with a massive presence in TV and magazine advertising.
The rollout of General Motors’ broad lineup of “X-Car” compact cars for 1980–which consisted of four separate vehicle lines spread across four brands–was a big event in the American automotive industry. Not surprisingly, GM backed up its ambitious new product initiative with a massive presence in TV and magazine advertising.
Though launched almost at the same time in 1979, the Buick Skylark, Chevrolet Citation, Oldsmobile Omega, and Pontiac Phoenix were all 1980 models, and the media blitz lasted throughout that calendar year. Here, a collection of 10 classic automotive print ads from 1980:
1980 Dodge Aspen
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Life in Nazi Germany, 1933-1939 Alongside control and suppression, the Nazis tried to influence every part of German life.
The economy Hitler claimed that he had dramatically reduced unemployment figures under the Nazis. Certainly, rearmament created jobs. But National Service meant young men were not counted as being unemployed any longer. Women and Jews were left out of the figures altogether. Therefore, we can’t be sure of how many people truly found jobs under the Nazis. However, living standards for working class Germans did not really improve and workers were expected to take part in Nazi Party schemes like Strength Through Joy, which gave them cheap holidays, in return for giving up their trade union rights.
The Nazis aspired to achieve autarky, or economic self-sufficiency, but in general the economy was geared towards preparing for a future war. As such, workers were expected to work long hours for modest pay and to toe the line.
Social policy The Nazis’ social policies affected two groups in society the most – women and young people:
Women were expected to embrace a life based around the ‘3 Ks’ of Kinder, Küche, Kirche (Children, Kitchen and Church). It was their duty to produce and raise children, in order to secure the future of the Reich. They were encouraged to give up work and received loans and awards for having lots of children. Young people were a particular target for the Nazis’ propaganda, as they represented the future. The school curriculum was altered to promote Nazi ideology and all young people were expected to join a Nazi youth organisation such as the Hitler Youth or the League of German Maidens. In addition, the Nazis sought to control or limit the influence of Christianity. They set up an official state church, called the Reich Church, which adapted protestant teachings to Nazi ideology. Also, despite signing a Concordat with the Pope in 1933 in which Hitler promised to leave the Catholic Church alone if it stayed out of politics, the Nazis attempted to interfere with it and placed restrictions on worship.
Persecution Nazi ideology centred on the belief that the Aryan of northern Europe was superior to all others and that some races were sub-human. Nazis also believed any weaknesses in the Aryan race, such as disabled people, should be weeded out to maintain racial purity. Therefore, many groups who the Nazis did not like were targeted and persecuted. This was done in many different ways; ‘euthanasia’, imprisonment in concentration camps and the loss of civil rights.
The group targeted most by this persecution were the Jews. Under the Nazis Jews in Germany had their rights gradually taken away, including their German citizenship. During World War Two, this deteriorated further and the Holocaust saw 6 million Jews from across Nazi-occupied Europe murdered.
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Street kids at play, Georgetown, Washington D.C., Summer 1935
The Great Depression was the worst economic downturn in the history of the industrialized world, lasting from 1929 to 1939. It began after the stock market crash of October 29, 1929, the “Black Tuesday”, which sent Wall Street into a panic and wiped out millions of investors.
Over the next several years, consumer spending and investment dropped, causing steep declines in industrial output and employment as failing companies laid off workers. By 1933, when the Great Depression reached its lowest point, some 15 million Americans were unemployed and nearly half the country’s banks had failed.
The end to the Great Depression came about in 1941 with America’s entry into World War II. America sided with Britain, France and the Soviet Union against Germany, Italy, and Japan. The loss of lives in this war was staggering.
The European part of the war ended with Germany’s surrender in May 1945. Japan surrendered in September 1945, after the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
These incredible vintage photos were colorized by Lamont Cranston that revived life of the U.S. in the 1930s and 1940s.
Street smart, Washington, D.C., 1935
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In the 1960s, it wasn’t just the fashion that was groovy and out there – interiors and architecture reflected trends of the time, too. One room that really received unique features during the 1960s were kitchens. Whether it was floor-to-ceiling woodwork or chartreuse laminate countertops, kitchens were far from boring during this era.
The biggest improvement of modern kitchen design in the 1960s is considered to be the work triangle layout, consisting of three connected work areas – the stove, sink and the refrigerator. This essential model is an example of a highly utilitarian and effective design that remains a key aspect in kitchen planning to this day.
Shag rugs, minimalist furniture, and kooky colors were all the rage of the kitchens in this period. These vintage photos captured people at their kitchens from the 1960s.
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