Beautiful Portrait Photos of a New York ’20s and ’30s Model

Here below is a set of beautiful photos from luicina that shows portrait of her grandmother Blanche Christine McLeod (1909-1981) (married name: McCaffrey) from between the 1920s and 1960s.

Portrait of Blanche Christine McLeod, a NYC ’20s and ’30s model

Blanche McLeod was a NYC ’20s and ’30s model who dated American singer, musician, actor, and radio host Rudy Valleé approx. 1926-1928.

Portrait of Blanche McLeod, circa late 1920s

Portrait of Blanche McLeod, circa late 1920s

Portrait of Blanche McLeod, circa late 1920s

“To a darned good sport - Blanche 1928”

Blanche C. McLeod and son, Forest Hills, New York, circa 1930s

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20 Fascinating Vintage Photographs of Mary Martin as Peter Pan

In the 1950s, a musical adaptation of J. M. Barrie’s ‘Peter Pan’ starring Mary Martin became a sensation, attracting the fourth biggest audience of all time for a scripted TV show when a live production was broadcast on NBC.

As Shannon Keating writes in a Atlantic column, “For many queer women and gender non-conforming people sprawled in front of their TV sets when they were still children, watching women like Mary Martin play Peter Pan provided visual affirmation that a genderbent lifestyle was within their realm of possibility.”

In the 1997 essay, “Never Gonna Be a Man/ Catch Me If You Can/ I Won’t Grow Up”: A Lesbian Account of Mary Martin as Peter Pan”, theater arts professor Stacy Wolf  considers the musical Peter Pan, and specifically Martin’s performance, from a queer perspective, “…to reconcile desire and/in representation by reading the body and voice of one of Broadway’s biggest musical stars who played the boy who wouldn’t grow up, as a lesbian.”

Never Never Land, according to Wolf, is inhabited by three homosocial communities: the Lost Boys, the Indians, and the Pirates. Race also plays a role in the drama: “The privilege and mobility of white womanhood ensures that whatever anxiety her short haircut and athletic antics may have evoked in some mid-century critics, Martin can still act like ‘an eight-year-old hurling himself over and over in the best mud he can find’ and culturally stay clean.”

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Fascinating Vintage Photos Capture Life of French Children in the 1930s and 1940s

A natural pair of keen eyes enables Robert Doisneau to have his own very poetic approach to street photography. Amusing juxtapositions, eccentrics, and oddities of human nature, social classes, and children’s street culture are his usual subjects. Children playing freely in the streets is the theme that Doisneau often revisits during his long career. 

Below are 20 fascinating vintage photographs capture French children playing out in the streets during the 1930s and 1940s by Doisneau:

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40 Fascinating Photos Capture Street Scenes of London in the Late 1980s

The 1980s were an iconic time for the United Kingdom, and London was at the centre of it all.  Short of a world war, there was probably no other period in which the social and political atmosphere changed so drastically.

The 1980s in London was a decade of considerable change. Long established industries, street scenes, shops and ways of life were being swept away.

Unions and family-owned shops gave way to privitisation and impersonal, foreign-owned stores. While some took to the streets in protest, others gathered in Wembley for a concert to bring help to less-fortunate populations.

These fascinating photos of London’s street scenes were taken by David Levine during his trip around Europe in the summer of 1989.

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Sweet Girl of Hollywood’s Silent Era: 40 Fabulous Photos of Betty Compson in the 1910s and ’20s

Born 1897 in Beaver, Utah, American actress Betty Compson got her start during Hollywood’s silent era. She is best known for her performances in The Docks of New York and The Barker, the latter of which earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.

One major film in which Compson did not appear was Gone with the Wind; although she shot a Technicolor screen test for the role of Belle Watling, she was not cast in the role.

In 1941, Compson appeared in a small role in an Alfred Hitchcock film Mr. & Mrs. Smith. Most of her later films were low-budget efforts. Compson’s last film was 1948’s Here Comes Trouble.

Compson married three times and had no children. She died in 1974, of a heart attack at her home in Glendale, California, aged 77. For her contributions to the motion picture industry, Compson has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1751 Vine Street.

Take a look at these fabulous photos to see the beauty of Betty Compson in the 1910s and 1920s.

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20 Stunning Studio Portraits Taken by Benjamin J. Falk From Between the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries

Benjamin ‘Jake’ Falk (1853-1925) at the turn of the 20th century was the most reputable theatrical portraitist working in New York.

Born in New York City and educated at City College, Falk apprenticed with George Rockwood, the Broadway portrait photographer. In 1877, he opened his first studio, distressingly far from the theater district, yet he was determined to specialize in theatrical images. His personal audacity and his attention to the latest technological inventions kept him in business despite his lacking the opulent studio fixtures of his rivals Sarony and Jose Mora.

Performers had to cart their costumes and props to Falk‘s premises for sittings. His inability to pay for exclusive picture rights with stars periodically got him into law suits, such as an 1887 contest with Lilian Olcott who presumed she had entered such an arrangement, but was informed she had to pay for prints that she ordered. Falk was an aggressive businessman, repeatedly bringing debtors to court throughout his career more than any other photographer in the city.

In theatrical history Falk is most noted for taking the first in theatre production photographs. Using electrical lights, he captured the first stage picture, an Act II tableaux from The Russian Honeymoon at the Madison Square Theater on May 1, 1883. By 1890, he had become a force in photographic circles, pushing for faster exposure times and more stable photographic emulsions.

By 1905 he was the senior active photographer on the New York scene. While the majority of portraitist in New York City considered themselves ‘society photographers,’ Falk, emulating his model, Napoleon Sarony (whose bronze bust adorned the sitting room of Falk‘s townhouse), asserted that he was a theatrical photographer.