25 Amazing American-Made Station Wagons From the 1960s
32 Vintage Photos of Mini Skirts From the Original ‘Star Trek’ Series, 1966
In the early 1960s the average stewardess uniform was a tailored suit with a nod toward military styling, but by mid-decade the uniforms were becoming increasingly fashionable, with “wild” colors and shorter skirts. Some details such as the front skirt flap and the outline of Yeoman Janice Rand’s checkerboard hairstyle appeared in LIFE magazine just before William “Bill” Ware Theiss, a gay costume designer at the beginning of his career, began designing his costumes.
The miniskirt portion of the costume was a brand new trend at the time. Some stories about the first miniskirts place them mere months before Theiss’s design. The idea for their use on Star Trek is usually attributed to Grace Lee Whitney, the actress who portrayed Yeoman Rand, who suggested short skirts after being told to present an “undercurrent of suppressed sexuality” between herself and Captain Kirk, but sex appeal certainly played a role either way since the studio had asked for sexier costumes after those velour tunics (and black pants for men and women) in the pilot episodes. Theiss obliged, especially when designing for guest actresses, originating the “Theiss Titillation Theory” that sex appeal lies not in the amount of skin shown, but rather in the relative likelihood of a costume falling off. Many of his costumes appear precarious indeed, but it must be said that women’s Starfleet uniforms look quite secure in comparison.
For feminist critics, miniskirts are a consistent focal point and often assumed to be a sexist symbol, particularly since women were “forced” to wear them as part of their uniforms. However, when the costumes were designed and originally worn, perceptions were very different. Nichelle Nichols, who played Lt. Uhura (the most visible woman on the show and a groundbreaking character for racial integration), discussed the issue in her autobiography:
“In later years, especially as the women’s movement took hold in the seventies, people began to ask me about my costume. Some thought it “demeaning” for a woman in the command crew to be dressed so sexily. It always surprised me because I never saw it that way. After all, the show was created in the age of the miniskirt, and the crew women’s uniforms were very comfortable. Contrary to what many may think today, no one really saw it as demeaning back then. In fact, the miniskirt was a symbol of sexual liberation. More to the point, though, in the twenty-third century, you are respected for your abilities regardless of what you do or do not wear.”
40 Vintage Photographs of U.S. Soldiers in Vietnam
The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina War, was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam. North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union, China, and other communist allies; South Vietnam was supported by the United States, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia, Thailand, and other anti-communist allies. The war, considered a Cold War-era proxy war by some, lasted 19 years, with direct U.S. involvement ending in 1973, and included the Laotian Civil War and the Cambodian Civil War, which ended with all three countries becoming communist in 1975.
28 Vintage Photos of the Streets of London in the Late 19th and Early 20th Century
39 Amazing Photos of New York City Subway Passengers From the Late 1930s and Early 1940s
As photographic technology advanced—cameras became more portable and film more sensitive to light, requiring shorter exposure times—people were no longer required to stay still for pictures. Walker Evans was among the photographers who capitalized on this flexibility. Between 1938 and 1941, he took his camera underground, where he photographed subway riders in New York City. “The guard is down and the mask is off,” he wrote, “even more than when in lone bedrooms (where there are mirrors). People’s faces are in naked repose down in the subway.”
(Photos by Walker Evans)
20 Vintage Photos Show Beautiful Women’s Fashions in the Roaring Twenties
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.
44 Amazing Vintage Photos Showing Life in the Warsaw Ghetto in the Summer of 1941
On 2 October 1940, Ludwig Fischer, Governor of the Warsaw District in the occupied General Government of Poland, signed the order to officially create a Jewish district (ghetto) in Warsaw. It was to become the largest ghetto in Nazi-occupied Europe.
All Jewish people in Warsaw had to relocate to the area of the ghetto by 15 November 1940. The ghetto was sealed on that date. In total 113,000 gentile Poles were forced to resettle to the ‘Aryan side’ and were replaced by 138,000 Jews from other districts of the capital.
The ghetto reached its highest number of inhabitants in April 1941. Within its wall lived 395,000 Varsovians (residents of Warsaw) of Jewish descent, 50,000 of people resettled from the western part of the Warsaw district, 3,000 from its eastern part as well as 4,000 Jews from Germany (all resettled in early months of 1941). Altogether there were around 460,000 inhabitants. 85,000 of them children up to the age of 14.
The living conditions in the ghetto were very difficult. Density of population was extreme, there were 146,000 people per square kilometre which meant 8 to 10 people per room on average. Jews from other districts of Warsaw as well as those from other cities were allowed to bring only the absolute minimum with them – usually personal belongings and bedclothes. That meant instant poverty and great social disadvantage in comparison with original inhabitants of the ghetto’s pre-war district. But in general only a very small percentage of the ghetto population had any kind of regular employment or any other source of income. Street trading became a necessity for many and anything could be a subject of exchange.
The German administration deliberately limited food supplies to the absolute minimum which caused near starvation amongst the population from the very beginning of the ghetto’s existence. Smuggling food, mainly by children, from the ‘Aryan side’ was the only option of providing the ghetto with supplies. Malnutrition, overpopulation and lack of medical care brought another deadly factor to the daily life of the ghetto’s residents – typhus.
The results were truly horrific – between October 1940 and July 1942 around 92,000 of Jewish residents of the ghetto died of starvation, diseases and cold which accounted for nearly 20% of the entire population. The dreadful conditions in the ghetto forced many Jews to escape. The German response was predictable:
“Jews who leave the quarter reserved for them without permission are liable to the death penalty. The same penalty awaits any person who knowingly gives shelter to such Jews.” Taken from an official German announcement – probably on display on both sides of the ghetto wall.
These astonishing photographs below were taken by photographer Willy Georgin the summer of 1941. He was issued a pass by one of his officers and instructed to enter the enclosed ghetto and take photos of what he saw there. Accroding to Studiolum, Georg shot four rolls of films and began to shoot a fifth one when the German military police stopped him. They confiscated the film in his camera, but fortunately they did not check his pockets before escorting him out of the ghetto. Georg developed the four rolls in Warsaw and preserved the photos in the next fifty years together with his other war pictures. In the late 1980s he met Rafael Scharf from London, a researcher of Polish-Jewish studies, to whom he gave these photos and who published them in 1993 in the book In the Warsaw Ghetto: Summer 1941.
50 Handsome Photos of Actor Errol Flynn during the 1930s
Errol Flynn (1909-1959) was an Australian-born film star who gained fame in Hollywood in the 1930s as the screen’s premier swashbuckler. Tall, athletic and exceptionally handsome, Flynn personified the cavalier adventurer in a string of immensely popular films for Warner Brothers, most often co-starring with Olivia deHavilland in such screen classics as “Captain Blood” and “The Adventures of Robin Hood.”
Flynn was born in Hobart, Tasmania, the son of professor Theodore Thomson Flynn, a world renowned Marine biologist, and Lily Mary Young. After an unhappy childhood that included physical and mental abuse by his mother, Flynn ran away to New Guinea where for several years he lived a life of adventure as a copra plantation overseer, constable, gold miner and guide up the dangerous Sepik River. In 1933, back in Australia, he was cast in a low-budget film, “In the Wake of the Bounty,” which gave him the idea of becoming an actor. He drifted to England where he landed work as a bit player with the Northampton Repertory Theater and, after appearing in one film, “Murder at Monte Carlo,” was discovered by a Warner Brothers talent scout.
Coming to America in 1934, Flynn was cast in two insignificant films before Warner Brothers took a chance on an unknown and starred him in “Captain Blood.” Flynn shot to international stardom overnight, and throughout the 1930s he was arguably the most recognizable movie star in the world. His striking good looks and screen charisma won him millions of fans, including legions of women who threw themselves at him.
Flynn also became as famous for his hedonistic lifestyle as for his swashbuckling movie roles. By his own estimate he slept with 10,000 women in his lifetime, and his penchant for alcohol, drugs and brawling aged him prematurely. By 1950 his best days were behind him both professionally and personally. Dropped by Warner Brothers in 1952, Flynn roamed the world in his yacht making substandard films abroad, as well as one short-lived television show, “The Errol Flynn Theater.” Near the end of his life he returned to Hollywood where he was rediscovered; playing drunks and washed out bums, he brought a poignancy to his performances that had not been there during his glamorous heyday.
Flynn, who was married three times, died in Vancouver, British Columbia, on October 14, 1959, of a heart attack. The coroner who examined the 50-year-old actor said he had the body of an 85-year-old man.
40 Vintage Photos of Life in England During the 1950s & 1960s
43 Wonderful Photos of Elvis and Priscilla Presley on Their Wedding Day on May 1, 1967
On May 1, 1967, Elvis Presley, King of Rock ’n’ Roll, married his girlfriend of many years, Priscilla Beaulieu, far from Graceland, at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas. There were no impersonators in sight, but there were members of the press, who were invited by the star’s manager to a press conference between the intimate ceremony and champagne breakfast for 100 that followed.
At that time, the 32-year-old King – still several years away from a rhinestone jumpsuit – was the world’s top-earning entertainer, starring in up to three movies a year and singing his way through their soundtracks. The couple first met eight years earlier, when he was stationed in Germany with the army and she lived on a military base with her Air Force Captain father. The two began seeing each other (“It was a very innocent time,” she later said, because she knows what you’re thinking. “We still had morals, very high standards.”) and Presley proposed with a three carat diamond in December 1966.
Here is a gallery of 43 vintage photographs from their wedding day on May 1, 1967.
