Edinburgh in the 1950s was a very different place. After the ravages of war, the International Festival and Military Tattoo was introduced as an antidote to post-war austerity, the new Civic Survey and Plan put forward grandiose recommendations for change, and a new young Queen visited the city.
This was a time when slum housing was a blight on many people’s lives, but there was a real sense of community that was ultimately lost in the move to sparkling, modern homes in the new housing estates. People continued to use the trams to travel to work in the many factories or make trips to Portobello for a day of fun, but they were slowly usurped by the car.
It was a glory period for the local football teams, and nights spent dancing or at the pictures were a weekly event. There was still the horse-drawn milk float and children played in streets that were lit by gas. Beautifully illustrated with many previously unpublished photographs, Edinburgh in the 1950s provides an exceptional insight into a time now acknowledged as the end of an era in Edinburgh – for good and for bad.
(left) St. Giles Cathedral?Sign: Equitable Loan of Scotland, Instituted 1824Calton Hill, Edinburgh, Scotland, between 15 and 17 August 1958.Edinburgh, Scotland, between 15 and 17 August 1958.Edinburgh, Scotland, between 15 and 17 August 1958.Edinburgh, Scotland, between 15 and 17 August 1958.Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh, Scotland, between 15 and 17 August 1958.
A drive-in is a facility (such as a restaurant or movie theater) where one can drive in with an automobile for service. At a drive-in restaurant, for example, customers park their vehicles and are usually served by staff who walk or rollerskate out to take orders and return with food, encouraging diners to remain parked while they eat. Drive-in theaters have a large screen and a car parking area for film-goers.
It is usually distinguished from a drive-through, in which drivers line up to make an order at a microphone set up at window height, and then drive to a window where they pay and receive their food. The drivers then take their meals elsewhere to eat.
The first drive-in restaurant was Kirby’s Pig Stand, which opened in Dallas, Texas, in 1921. In North America, drive-in facilities of all types have become less popular since their heyday in the 1950s and 1960s, with drive-throughs rising to prominence since the 1970s and 1980s.
The largest Drive-In still in operation is The Varsity of Atlanta, Georgia.
These amazing drive-in photos that offer a glimpse into the era of dining in one’s car from between the 1930s and 1960s.
A carhop pouring milk from a bottle into a glass, at McDonnell’s Drive-In, circa mid-1930sMcDonnell’s Drive-In at night, circa mid-1930sThe Montlake Drive-In Market, opened in 1931, Seattle, Washington, 1937Kau Kau Korner Drive-In, Hawaii, circa 1940sA late night at the drive in, a couple and their young son watch a film while they sit in their ’41 Buick coupe, with almost an equally large canister of popcornAndy’s Drive-In with carhops pose in front with cars they’re serving, circa 1941A neon sign at a drive-in restaurant in Hollywood, California, 1942A carhop holds two trays as she poses for a shot in front of a small diner, Houston, Texas, 1945A friendly carhop converses with two guys in a ’46-7 Mercury convertible, at Simon’s Drive-In, 1948The A & W Drive In, California, circa 1950sThe McDonald’s Drive-In, circa 1950sBob’s Big Boy carhop waitress at drive-in, Southern California, 1952Whitestone Bridge Drive-in. This theater in the Bronx lasted from 1949 to 1983, circa 1953The carhop on the wall at a White Castle in Wentzville, Missouri, circa 1960sThe Red Steer Drive-In, Boise, Idaho, circa 1960s
British photographer Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879) has been described as one of the Finest portraitists of the nineteenth century-in any medium. Raised in a well-connected and creative family, Cameron led an unconventional life for a woman of the Victorian age. After devoting herself to an artistic and literary salon at her home on the Isle of Wight and raising eleven children, Cameron took up photography in her late forties.
Over the next fourteen years, she produced more than a thousand strikingly original and often controversial images. Her searching portraits of her friends and acquaintances, including Alfred Tennyson and Charles Darwin, have been called the world’s first close-ups.
May Day, 1866Circe, 1865The Five Foolish Virgins, 1864Il Penseroso, 1864–1865Long-Suffering, Gentleness, GoodnessSummer Days, 1866Sappho, 1865The Passing Of Arthur, 1875. From Illustrations to Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, and Other Poems, Volume II.Kate Dore, 1862Paul and Virginia, 1864Mrs. Herbert Duckworth, 1872Annie; ‘My first success,’ 1864Lady Adelaide Talbot, May 1865Lady Adelaide Talbot, May 1865Christiana Fraser-Tytler, c. 1864-1865Sappho, 1865Christabel, 1866Beatrice 1866Julia Jackson 1867Hosanna 1865Portrait of Julia Margaret Cameron by her son, about 1870Vivien and Merlin from Illustrations to Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, 1874Lady Elcho / A Dantesque Vision, 1865Resting in Hope; La Madonna Riposata, 1864St. Agnes, 1864The Dream, 1869Henry Taylor, October 10, 1867Charles Darwin, 1868Portrait of Herschel, April 1867Henry Cole, 1868
It’s amazing how easy it is to picture the past in black and white. Even when we know of course it was as colorful as today, it’s still striking to come across the shots that demonstrate this. Somehow color makes it feel so much nearer.
Autochromes, the main process of color photography for the first few decades of the 20th century, present color in a gentle, muted kind of way– not unlike many painters in preceding centuries. It was not long before photographers used this look to full advantage, creating beautiful photographs deliberately evocative of paintings…
We’ve seen artistically arranged early color photographs; today, a selection of portraits of people from the 1910s in full color, from the collections of George Eastman House.
The American actress and singer quit school at 14 to help support her family and began entering beauty pageants and was crowned ‘Miss New Orleans’, in 1931. In 1935, Dorothy Lamour went on tour with Herbie Kay’s orchestra which led her to obtain her own musical program on the radio. In 1936, she moved to Hollywood and signed a contract with Paramount Pictures, staring in the popular hit, The Jungle Princess. Throughout the film, the actress wore a seductive sarong at a time when major studios believed that certain actresses needed something of a signature: Dorothy Lamour became the ‘Sarong Queen.’
During the 1940s, she was the main feminine act in the widely successful series of films, Road to…, alongside Bing Crosby and Bob Hope. During World War II, she was among the most popular pin-up girls and an active war support.
From the beginning of the 1950s, her career declined and she turned herself towards theatre and cabaret until the end of the 1970s. Dorothy Lamour remained, throughout her career, quite modest about her acting and singing abilities when asked by an interviewer if she had ever studied these disciplines, she simply replied: ‘No, can’t you tell?’
Dublin is the capital and largest city of Ireland. It is in the province of Leinster on Ireland’s east coast, at the mouth of the River Liffey.
Dublin is one of the top thirty cities in the world, and is a historical and contemporary centre for education, the arts, administration, economy and industry.
Take a trip back to this beautiful city through amazing vintage photos taken from between the 1860s to 1890s.
Doulagh’s Church on the Malahide Road, Dublin, ca. 1860sHorse-drawn omnibus, Westmoreland Street, Dublin, 1863-66Gentlemen at the Black Church Hotel in Kildare, 1868Two gentlemen admire the statue of Edmund Burke outside Trinity College Dublin, 1868-70Main Street in Blackrock, 1870sPeople at Salthill Railway station, Monkstown, 1870sSmith O’Brien Statue, Dublin, 1871Stephen’s Green, Dublin, 1873-78The sailing ship Adolphine moored at the Custom House in Dublin, with a swivel bridge in the foreground, 1880sMain Street, Swords, Co. Dublin, 1880sO’Connell Monument under construction, 1880-82The O’Connell Monument in 1889-92A murky day on Patrick Street in the Liberties of Dublin, 1898A woman passing a newsagents on Sackville Street (now O’Connell Street), Dublin, 1897Alexandria School’s in 1890Cross at Blackrock, 1890sHorse trams at corner of Bachelor’s Walk and O’Connell Bridge, 1890sIrish Jaunting car in Dublin, 1890sMan with umbrella standing at the junction of Nassau Street, Grafton Street and Suffolk Street, 1896Men in front of ornate door, Trinity College, Dublin, 1890sO’Connell Bridge and Sackville Street (now O’Connell Street), Dublin, 1890On a Dublin street in 1898Penny farthing at St. Stephen’s Green in Dublin, 1890Sackville Street in Dublin, 1890sSouth City Market, George’s Street, Dublin, 1890sSouth Great George’s Street Market, Dublin City, Co. Dublin, 1895The National Library of Ireland building on Kildare Street, Dublin, 1895Two women walking past jewellers on Grafton Street, 1897
These photographs of a drive-in church in St. Petersburg, Florida circa 1947 were taken by photographer Sam Shere for a feature in LIFE magazine that never got published. The photographs give us a peek into a very different era.
St. Petersburg still has a drive-in church today, but without the impressive line-up of classic cars.
Doris Eaton Travis (1904-2010) was an American dancer, stage and film actress, dance instructor, writer, and rancher, who was the last of the acclaimed Ziegfeld girls.
Travis began performing onstage as a young child, and made her Broadway debut at the age of 13, and joined the famed Ziegfeld Follies as the youngest Ziegfeld girl ever cast in the show in 1918. She continued to perform in stage productions and silent films throughout the 1920s and early 1930s.
When her career in stage and screen declined, Travis started a second career as an Arthur Murray dance instructor and local television personality in Detroit. Her association with Arthur Murray lasted for three decades, during which time she rose through the ranks to own and manage a chain of nearly twenty schools. After retiring from her career with Arthur Murray, she went on to manage a horse ranch with her husband and returned to school, eventually earning several degrees.
As the last surviving Ziegfeld girl, Travis was featured in several books and documentaries about the Ziegfeld Follies years and her other stage endeavors. Travis had also returned to the stage as a featured performer in benefit performances.
Robert Doisneau was born in 1922 in Gentilly, a suburb of Paris. He becames a camera assistant at André Vigneau’s studio in 1931, where he discovers artistic outlets that will spur him on. The four years he spent working for the advertising department of Renault car maker, from where he was fired for repeated lateness, led him to the attractive position of independent photographer.
World War II bursts out then, putting an end to his projects. Later, in the Parisian post-war euphoria, despite the fact that he daily deals with orders to make a living, he hoards the photos that will meet with great success, obstinately cruising where “there is nothing to see”, favoring furtive points, tiny pleasures lit by the ’ reflections of sunbeams on cities’ asphalt.
When he died in April 1994, he left behind 450,000 negatives that tell an entertaining story of his time with a tender and observant eye, which must not hide the depth of his thought, his irreverent attitude toward power and authority, his relentlessly free-thinking mind.
Some 156,000 Allied troops landed on five Normandy beaches during the operation on June 6, 1944, which would ultimately lead to the defeat of Nazi Germany and the end of the Second World War. It was the largest seaborne invasion in history and saw 4,400 allied troops lose their lives.
Striking shots show men storming French beaches under ominous grey skies for the invasion, glider pilots on landing craft, and British Airborne Pathfinders at Harwell checking their watches on the night of June 5, 1944, hours before the battle commenced.
The original black and white photographs were painstakingly colorized by electrician Royston Leonard, with each snap taking between four and five hours to complete.
“As time goes by I find I am doing more World War Two pictures and giving them a bit of colour helps the younger generation to connect and not just see them as something that happened long ago,” he said. “In the images I see a world that has gone mad and men and women pulled from their lives to sort out the mess. World War Two shows people at their best and at their worst. We must look and learn and not let it happen again.”
The astonishing scale of the invasion can be seen in this image taken of the American forces arriving on Utah Beach.U.S. troops from the USS Joseph T. Dickman wait to disembark from their landing craft as they approach Utah Beach on June 6 1944.A craft from the USS Samuel Chase lands troops of the US Army First Division on Omaha Beach.Glider pilots take the opportunity for a quick cigarette as they are crowded onto a landing craft.Royal Marines descend from landing craft with their heavy backpacks, weapons and equipment on Juno beach.American troops arrive on a Normandy beach in a lengthy procession from their landing crafts.British troops show their true grit as they help injured comrades onto Sword Beach.US Army Fourth Infantry Division troops take a breather after making their way onto Utah Red Beach.British Airborne Pathfinders check their watches on the night before the invasion.Reinforcements arrive by sea to bolster U.S. troop numbers on the Normandy front.The USS LST-21, manned by the U.S. coastguard unloads British Army tanks and trucks onto a Rhino barge in the opening hours of their invasion of Gold Beach.Troops load U.S. LSTs with artillery equipment, vehicles and troops in Brixham, England before they head for Normandy.Nazi General Erwin Rommel inspects defences ahead of D-Day. On the actual day of the invasion he was away from the front celebrating his wife’s birthday.German troops camouflage a Panzer VI Tiger tank with undergrowth in the Normandy village of Villers-Bocage.Members of the 22nd Independent Parachute Company, 6th Airborne Division attend a briefing ahead of the D-Day invasion.Troops establish a radio communications post after landing.
(Images Colorized by Royston Leonard / Mediadrumworld.com)
