Vintage Everyday

June 22, 2014

Amazing Vintage Photographs Captured Everyday Life in New York City From the 1890s

June 22, 2014 1800s, life & culture, New York, people, street

Danish-born Jacob Riis (1849-1914) was a social reformer and photojournalist. He is best known for his 1890 book How the Other Half Lives, which brought public attention to New York's squalid housing, sweatshops, bars, and alleys.

The City Museum holds the complete collection of images that Riis used in his writing and lecturing career, including photographs he made, commissioned, or acquired. These depict men, women, and children of many nationalities at home, work, and leisure.

This collection contains vintage prints, glass-plate negatives, and lantern slides, as well as a set of recently produced prints from all of Riis's original negatives.

The Mulberry Bend.

Portrait of three girls who served as inspectors in the first Board of Election at the Beach Street Industrial School.

An old woman with the plank she sleeps on at the Eldridge Street Station women's lodging room.

"I Scrubs," Little Katie from the W. 52nd Street Industrial School (since moved to W. 53rd Street).

Lodgers in a crowded Bayard Street tenement.

Gorgeous Billboards Around San Francisco From the 1970s and 1980s

June 22, 2014 1970s, 1980s, ads, California, San Francisco, work of art

Larry Sultan and Mike Mandel are two pioneering street artists who shared their colorful visions with the world via appropriated billboards from 1973 to 1989, and their works look just as fresh today as they did forty years ago.

Here’s more about this dynamic art duo and their billboard appropriation project:

“Beginning in 1973 and up until 1989, we worked together on open ended, allusive designs for outdoor advertising billboards, under the name Clatworthy Colorvues. The billboards were exhibited mostly in the San Francisco Bay Area, where we lived, but sometimes installed in other parts of the country, the result of workshops we led with graduate students, or exhibitions on appropriation and public art. With the billboard, we wanted to reach a larger and more varied public than would ever find its way into an art institution.”

Oranges on Fire / 1975

Alaska: Tectonic Features, from the series Sixty Billboards / 1976

Kansas Counties, from the series Sixty Billboards / 1976

Electric Energy Consumption, from the series Sixty Billboards / 1976

Chicago Workshop / 1978

Old Photographs of Russia in 1913

June 22, 2014 1910s, architecture & construction, life, street

June 21, 2014

40 Stunning Black and White Photos Capture Everyday Life in New York City in the 1950s

June 21, 2014 1950s, life & culture, New York, people, street

Frank Oscar Larson was born in Greenpoint, Brooklyn in 1896, the son of Swedish immigrants who moved to New York in early 1890s. After serving in World War I as an artillery man and then completing his college education, Frank took a job with Empire Trust Company in Manhattan, where he worked his way up the company ladder to become an auditor for the bank. He worked there until he retired in the late 1950s.

Frank had a number of hobbies which provided for him a creative outlet and a much needed relief from his 9 to 5 banking job. He played the violin, carved wooden sculptures and was an avid photographer. Photographs dating back to the 1920s attest to the fact that he was always the family shutterbug, but it was in the early 1950s that Frank's passion for photography blossomed.

For the next 16 years he took thousands of photographs, mostly with a medium-format Rolleiflex camera. On weekends in the early 1950s he would leave home early in the morning on photographic expeditions to exotic places like the Bowery, Chinatown or Times Square, or to less exotic places like Central Park, the Cloisters or nearby Kissena Park. Below is a selection of 40 black and white photos of everyday life in New York City in the 1950s taken by Frank Oscar Larson.

16 Interesting Black and White Photos of Denmark in the 1930s

June 21, 2014 1930s, architecture & construction, Denmark, life & culture, street

Denmark had joined the League of Nations in 1920 and had worked for a peaceful solution to international problems during the interwar period. In the 1930s, however, foreign policy was complicated by events in Germany.

When Adolf Hitler came to power and Germany began to rearm, Denmark’s position again became vulnerable. Although Germany had never recognized the alterations in its boundaries as laid down by the Treaty of Versailles, Denmark tried in vain to obtain German recognition of the Schleswig boundary. At the same time, it avoided measures that could offend its powerful neighbor. When in June 1939 Hitler offered nonaggression pacts to those countries that might feel threatened by Germany’s expansionist policy, Denmark, in contrast to the other Scandinavian countries, accepted the offer. In September of that year, at the outbreak of World War II, Denmark—this time together with the other Nordic countries—issued a declaration of neutrality.

Below is a collection of some of interesting vintage photographs that capture everyday life in Denmark in the 1930s:

Sølvgade Barracks in Copenhagen, Denmark

Children in Kalundborg, Denmark

House in Helsingoer, Denmark

Town Hall in Viborg, Denmark

Cyclist in Copenhagen, Denmark

June 20, 2014

1950s Bathing Suit Caps and Beach Fashion in California

June 20, 2014 1950s, beach, California, fashion & clothing, female

The 1950s beachwear ideas come from native classics like T-shirts and everyday materials like toweling, as in the practical but startling salmon pink toga. They are influenced by foreign styles, as in the Riviera “pirate pants” and the big straw hats from the Virgin islands and Hawaii. The hat shapes add drama to plain black bathing suits and show signs of reviving big sunshade straws this summer on U.S beaches everywhere.

Seeing summer is around the corner, why not catch up with the latest trends and styles in beach fashion for women. Here are some fantastic photographs taken by LIFE photographer Loomis Dean in California circa 1950s.

45 Amazing Photos of World War I at Sea

June 20, 2014 1940s, event & history, military, war, World War I

The land war in Europe became a destructive machine, consuming supplies, equipment, and soldiers at massive rates.

Resupply ships from the home front and allies streamed across the Atlantic, braving submarine attacks, underwater mines, and aerial bombardment. Battleships clashed with each other from the Indian Ocean to the North Sea, competing for control of colonial territory and home ports.

New technologies were invented and refined, such as submarine warfare, camouflaged hulls, and massive water-borne aircraft carriers. And countless thousands of sailors, soldiers, passengers, and crew members were sent to the bottom of the sea.

Here's a collection of 45 amazing photos of the World War I at sea.

A German U-boat stranded on the South Coast of England, after surrender. (Keystone View Company)

The former German submarine UB 148 at sea, after having been surrendered to the Allies. UB-148, a small coastal submarine, was laid down during the winter of 1917 and 1918 at Bremen, Germany. (US National Archives)

Interior view of a British Navy submarine under construction, Clyde and Newcastle. (Nationaal Archief)

Evacuation of Suvla Bay, Dardanelles, Gallipoli Peninsula, on January 1916. (Bibliotheque nationale de France)

In the Dardanelles, the allied fleet blows up a disabled ship that interfered with navigation. (Bibliotheque nationale de France)

Polytechnic School of Hairdressing, ca. 1910s

June 20, 2014 1910s, life & culture, school, students

The School of Hairdressing formed part of the Craft Schools at Regent Street Polytechnic. From 1929 the School was based in the Little Titchfield Street premises.

(Photos via UniOfWestminsterArchives)

Interesting Vintage Photos That Show People Having Fun in the Summer in New York From the Past

June 20, 2014 humor & hilarious, life & culture, New York, people

As another steamy summer approaches, New Yorkers can find relief in the luxury of modern day air-conditioning, as well as one of the city’s 43 outdoor pools. But for those who endured sweltering temperatures during the early 20th century, cooling off meant diving into the Hudson River, busting open a fire hydrant, swimming in Central Park's ponds and sleeping outside on fire escape stairs. From Brooklyn in 1900 to the Manhattan block parties of the Seventies, a series of fascinating black and white images reveals how New York City residents endured heat waves and sleepless nights.

Coney Island Beach ca. 1900

Girls play in the street and sidewalks during a block party in New York during the summer of 1970

Madison Square Garden transformed into swimming pool scene in Tex Rickard's luxurious indoor swimming pool which was thrown open to the public in 1921

With one youngster manning the hydrant, three boys of New York's super-heated Lower East Side get a cool and refreshing shower as a brief respite in 1957