56 Amazing Photos From the 1920s
49 Amazing Vintage Photos Showing Life in the United States During the Early 1940s
Born 1914 as Jacob Ovcharov in Voroshilovka, Podolie Governorate, Russian Empire (now Vorošýlivka, Ukraine) and moved, with his parents and younger brother, to the United States in 1923, American photographer Jack Delano worked for the Farm Security Administration (FSA) and was also a composer noted for his use of Puerto Rican folk material.
After graduating from the Academy, Delano started working as a freelance photographer in Philadelphia and New York. He also developed an interest in films, and together with his future wife Irene Esser started making short documentaries.
Impressed by the work of famous photographers like Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans, Delano applied for a job with the historical section of the FSA (Farm Security Administration) in 1940. For the next years he traveled throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. All through this time Delano’s primary assignment was to document the social and working conditions of people in FSA projects. All of this was happening during the Second World War, and Delano was drafted in 1943.
Delano traveled throughout the South Pacific and South America before being discharged in 1946.
These amazing photographs Delano took for the Farm Security Administration-Office of War Information that documented everyday life of the US during WWII.
January 1943
36 Vintage Photos of Philippe Petit’s Twin Towers Tightrope Walk in 1974
The original World Trade Center was a large complex of seven buildings in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York City, United States. It opened on April 4, 1973, and was destroyed in 2001 during the September 11 attacks. At the time of their completion, the Twin Towers—the original 1 World Trade Center (the North Tower) at 1,368 feet (417 m); and 2 World Trade Center (the South Tower) at 1,362 feet (415.1 m)—were the tallest buildings in the world. Other buildings in the complex included the Marriott World Trade Center (3 WTC), 4 WTC, 5 WTC, 6 WTC, and 7 WTC. The complex contained 13,400,000 square feet (1,240,000 m2) of office space.
The core complex was built between 1966 and 1975, at a cost of $400 million (equivalent to $2.27 billion in 2021). The idea was suggested by David Rockefeller to help stimulate urban renewal in Lower Manhattan, and his brother Nelson signed the legislation to build it. The buildings at the complex were designed by Minoru Yamasaki. In 1998, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey decided to privatize it by leasing the buildings to a private company to manage. It awarded the lease to Silverstein Properties in July 2001. During its existence, the World Trade Center symbolized globalization and the economic power of America. Although its design was initially criticised by New York citizens and professional critics, the Twin Towers became an icon of New York City. It had a major role in popular culture, and according to one estimate was depicted in 472 films. The Twin Towers were also used in Philippe Petit’s frequent tightrope-walking performance on 7 August 1974. Following the September 11 attacks, mentions of the complex in various media were altered or deleted, and several dozen “memorial films” were created.
The World Trade Center experienced several major crime and terrorist incidents, including a fire on February 13, 1975; a bombing on February 26, 1993; a bank robbery on January 14, 1998, and finally a terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. The latter began after Al-Qaeda-affiliated hijackers flew two Boeing 767 jets into the Twin Towers within minutes of each other. Between 16,400 and 18,000 people were in the Twin Towers when they were struck. The fires from the impacts were intensified by the planes’ burning jet fuel, which along with the initial damage to the buildings’ structural columns, ultimately caused both towers to collapse. The attacks in New York City killed 2,606 people in and within the vicinity of the towers, as well as all 157 on board the two aircraft. Falling debris from the towers, combined with fires that the debris initiated in several surrounding buildings, led to the partial or complete collapse of all the WTC complex’s buildings including 7 World Trade Center, and caused catastrophic damage to 10 other large structures in the surrounding area.
The cleanup and recovery process at the World Trade Center site took eight months, during which the remains of the other buildings were demolished. On May 30, 2002, the last piece of WTC steel was ceremonially removed. A new World Trade Center complex is being built with six new skyscrapers and several other buildings, many of which are complete. A memorial and museum to those killed in the attacks, a new rapid transit hub, and an elevated park have been opened. The memorial features two square reflecting pools in the center marking where the Twin Towers stood. One World Trade Center, the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere at 1,776 feet (541 m) and the lead building for the new complex, was completed in May 2013 and opened in November 2014. (Wikipedia)
30 Vintage Photos Showing Times Square in New York City
Times Square is a major commercial intersection, tourist destination, entertainment center, and neighborhood in the Midtown Manhattan section of New York City, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue. Brightly lit by numerous billboards and advertisements, it stretches from West 42nd to West 47th Streets, and is sometimes referred to as “the Crossroads of the World”, “the Center of the Universe”, “the heart of the Great White Way”, and “the heart of the world”. One of the world’s busiest pedestrian areas, it is also the hub of the Broadway Theater District and a major center of the world’s entertainment industry. Times Square is one of the world’s most visited tourist attractions, drawing an estimated 50 million visitors annually. Approximately 330,000 people pass through Times Square daily, many of them tourists, while over 460,000 pedestrians walk through Times Square on its busiest days.
Formerly known as Longacre Square, Times Square was renamed in 1904 after The New York Times moved its headquarters to the then newly erected Times Building, now One Times Square. It is the site of the annual New Year’s Eve ball drop, which began on December 31, 1907, and continues to attract over a million visitors to Times Square every year.
Times Square functions as a town square, but is not geometrically a square; it is closer in shape to a bowtie, with two triangles emanating roughly north and south from 45th Street, where Seventh Avenue intersects Broadway. Broadway runs diagonally, crossing through the horizontal and vertical street grid of Manhattan laid down by the Commissioners’ Plan of 1811, and that intersection creates the “bowtie” shape of Times Square.
The southern triangle of Times Square has no specific name, but the northern triangle is officially Duffy Square. It was dedicated in 1937 to World War I chaplain Father Francis P. Duffy of New York City’s U.S. 69th Infantry Regiment and is the site of a memorial to him. There is also a statue of composer and entertainer George M. Cohan, and the TKTS ticket booth for Broadway theaters. (Wikipedia)
The paper’s headline reads “War Declared On Germany.” September 3, 1939.
The promotion, organized by the United National Clothing Collection was part of drive to collect clothing and bedding for overseas war relief. April 1945.
54 Stunning Photos of Britt Ekland During The 1960s
Britt Ekland was born in Sweden and grew up to be the poster girl for beautiful, big-eyed Scandinavian blondes. She attended a drama school and then joined a traveling theater group. With her looks as her passport, Britt entered films and became a star in Italy. When Peter Sellers met her in a hotel, he fell hard for her and they soon married. The combination of Sellers’ stardom and her stunning beauty contributed to her fame (the fact that Sellers suffered a heart attack in bed on their wedding night did not hurt, either). She appeared in two films with her husband: After the Fox (1966), written by Neil Simon, and the forgettable The Bobo (1967). Her claim to fame would come as the young girl who invented the striptease in The Night They Raided Minsky’s (1968). After that, she appeared in a string of movies that were built around her looks and not much else. She did appear in some first-rate productions over the years, though, two of them being Get Carter (1971) and the cult classic The Wicker Man (1973). The high point in her career would be her role as Bond girl Mary Goodnight in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974). After her much publicized breakup with rocker Rod Stewart in 1977, Britt continued to make movies–both features and made-for-TV films–and tried the stage. By that time, the quality of her film projects had decreased markedly, and she was reduced to appearing in things like Fraternity Vacation (1985) and Beverly Hills Vamp (1989).
Text by Tony Fontana via IMDB.com.
Amazing Photos Showing Life in Texas migrant camps During the 1940s
Migrant Camps, or Weedpatch Camp, has its origins in the migrations during the drought that caused the Dust Bowl in the mid-1930s. Oklahoma was especially hard hit by the drought and many of the farmers there left. They migrated to California where they moved from farm to farm looking for work as farm laborers. They were joined by other migrant workers from Texas, Arkansas and Missouri. Housing for the migrants consisted of either squatter camps (tents pitched by the side of a road) or camps established by the farmers and growers.
Because of the lack of hygiene and security that these types of camps offered, the Farm Security Administration (FSA) built labor camps consisting of permanent buildings with running water such as schools and libraries. The FSA also provided help locating work. The first administrator of Weedpatch Camp was Tom Collins.[2]
Between April 1935 and December 1936, the federal government’s New Deal Resettlement Administration (RA) had relocated many struggling rural and urban families to planned communities. Weedpatch Camp, however, was constructed by the Works Progress Administration. It was located on the outskirts of the small towns of Arvin and Weedpatch. The camp now is located in an unincorporated area of Kern County just south of Bakersfield.
The camp originally consisted of canvas tents on plywood platforms for the residents and permanent buildings to house the community functions such as administration, community hall, post office, library and barber shop. Later, the residents’ tents were replaced by permanent wood frame shacks. The buildings are single story wood frame structures.
There are three buildings remaining from the camp that make up this National Register of Historic Places property: the community hall, the post office, and the library. The latter two buildings were moved next to the community hall to form the beginnings of a historic park on the property. In 2007, the exteriors of the library and post office buildings were renovated.[3]
The camp is significant in the history of California for the migration of people escaping the Dust Bowl. These migrants were known by the derogatory term of Okie and were the subject of discrimination from the local population.
The plight of the Okies and a description of Migrant Camps were chronicled by novelist John Steinbeck in his book The Grapes of Wrath. The book is dedicated to camp administrator Collins who was the model for the character called Jim Rawley.[2] Author Sonora Babb worked at the camp under Collins’ supervision and wrote Whose Names Are Unknown, a novel depicting the experiences of a migrant family from Oklahoma that went unpublished until 2004 due to her publisher dropping the book shortly after The Grapes of Wrath was released and met with major success.[4]
Migrant advocate Dr. Myrnie Gifford revealed in a 1937 Kern County Public Health Department annual report that 25% of the Okies in Arvin Federal Labor Camp tested positive for a disease associated with agricultural dust exposure called “valley fever.”[5]
The camp was subsequently taken over by the Kern County Housing Authority, which administers it as the Sunset Labor Camp to assist migrant farm workers. (Wikipedia)
20 Vintage Photos Show Women’s Fashions During the Jazz Age
1920s fashion was the perfect blend between style and function. Beautiful clothes that allowed women to move.
The 1920s heralded a dramatic break between America’s past and future. Before World War I the country remained culturally and psychologically rooted in the nineteenth century, but in the 1920s America seemed to break its wistful attachments to the recent past and usher in a more modern era. The most vivid impressions of that era are flappers and dance halls, movie palaces and radio empires, and Prohibition and speakeasies.
The flapper is most associated with the 1920s. Their skirts were shorter, they partied all night long, and they were the fad of the time. They left their corsets behind in nineteen-nineteen and put on a cloche hat to cover their short locks. They dropped their dress waistlines to their low hips and enjoyed the looseness of the prime time of their lives. They wore dresses adorned with fur and sequins. The colors were of bright and pale and often in dramatic combinations. Fashion had changed, and it would never be the same.
35 Vintage Photos of What Summer Used to Look Like in America
29 Incredible Photographs of the 1945 Dresden Bombing and its Aftermath
The bombing of Dresden was a British-American aerial bombing attack on the city of Dresden, the capital of the German state of Saxony, during World War II. In four raids between 13 and 15 February 1945, 722 heavy bombers of the British Royal Air Force (RAF) and 527 of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) dropped more than 3,900 tons of high-explosive bombs and incendiary devices on the city. The bombing and the resulting firestorm destroyed more than 1,600 acres (6.5 km2) of the city centre. An estimated 22,700 to 25,000 people were killed. Three more USAAF air raids followed, two occurring on 2 March aimed at the city’s railway marshalling yard and one smaller raid on 17 April aimed at industrial areas.
Immediate German propaganda claims, following the attacks and postwar discussions of whether the attacks were justified, have led to the bombing becoming one of the moral causes célèbres of the war. A 1953 United States Air Force report defended the operation as the justified bombing of a strategic target, which they noted was a major rail transport and communication centre, housing 110 factories and 50,000 workers in support of the German war effort. Several researchers claim that not all of the communications infrastructure, such as the bridges, were targeted, nor were the extensive industrial areas which were located outside the city centre. Critics of the bombing have asserted that Dresden was a cultural landmark while downplaying its strategic significance, and claim that the attacks were indiscriminate area bombing and not proportionate to the military gains. Some have claimed that the raid constituted a war crime. Some, mostly in the German far-right, refer to the bombing as a mass murder. To much controversy, some on the German far-right have taken to calling it “Dresden’s Holocaust of bombs” as an attempt to equate it to actual genocide of Jews committed by Germany; this is even though the bombing of Dresden had a mere 0.4% of the casualties of the real Holocaust.
In the decades since the war, large variations in the claimed death toll have fuelled the controversy, though the numbers themselves are no longer a major point of contention among historians. In March 1945, the German government ordered its press to publish a falsified casualty figure of 200,000 for the Dresden raids, and death tolls as high as 500,000 have been claimed. The city authorities at the time estimated up to 25,000 victims, a figure that subsequent investigations supported, including a 2010 study commissioned by the city council. One of the main authors responsible for inflated figures being disseminated in the West was Holocaust denier David Irving, who subsequently announced that he had discovered that the documentation he had worked from had been forged, and the real figures supported the 25,000 number. (Wikipedia)
30 Vintage Photos of Skirt Raising from the 1920s through the 1960s
