Rare and Amazing Color Photographs From the First World War

The autochrome, more formally known as the Autochrome Lumière, was attributed to two brothers, Auguste and Louis Lumière — French photographers also credited with the invention of early motion-picture equipment. Although other innovators had discovered ways to bring color to images through tint and screen processing, the autochrome, debuting in 1904, utilized a number of emulsion layers locking in natural color on a permanent glass negative.

We're always jolted when we encounter vivid color photographs from the decades that we have collectively consigned to monochromatic grays. Sometimes these colors derive from a colorized restoration; at other times, we discover a world of color in the bowels of an old camera, locked in the emulsion of slide film in a machine lost, abandoned or forgotten decades earlier.

And sometimes, with luck, we stumble upon scenes from a "pre-color" era captured with experimental color processes. The vibrant photos from World War I posted in this gallery are examples of this surprisingly variegated, many-hued world.

A French soldier, circa 1915. (©Mark Jacobs Archive /The Image Works)

View of Verdun after 8 months of bombing, September 1916. (©R Schultz Collection / The Image Works)

French Gunners receive instruction, 1916. (©TopFoto / The Image Works)

The remains of a dead French soldier and his gun rest under a tree on the Western Front in France. (©R Schultz Collection / The Image Works)

French soldiers of the 370th Infantry Regiment eat soup during the battle of the Aisne in 1917. (©R Schultz Collection / The Image Works)

See more»

Vintage Photographs Reveal How New York Police Measuring a Criminal in the 1900s

Imagine you have to correctly identify a criminal without technology or legitimate lab. What if you had to decide whether someone is a killer or not, using only black and white, unfocused photographs and some witness’ testimony?

In 1879 Alphonse Bertillon, a French police officer and biometrics researcher, introduced police to a brand new system of identifying criminals. Anthropometry, or simply measuring a person, proved to be a little bit more effective than previous methods of recognizing suspects only by photographs and names.

This system, known as the Bertillon system, or bertillonage, quickly gained wide acceptance as a reliable, scientific method of criminal investigation. In 1884 alone, French police used Bertillon’s system to help capture 241 repeat offenders, which helped establish the system’s effectiveness. It has been introduced to US police on 1906.

The method was eventually supplanted by fingerprinting, but his other contributions like the mug shot and the systematization of crime-scene photography remain in place to this day.

See more»

Color Photographs of Daily Life in German Democratic Republic From Between the 1950s and 1970s

The German Democratic Republic (GDR), informally known in English as East Germany, was a state within the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War period.

From 1949 to 1990, it administered the region of Germany which was occupied by Soviet forces at the end of the Second World War—the Soviet Occupation Zone of the Potsdam Agreement, bounded on the east by the Oder-Neisse line. The Soviet zone surrounded West Berlin, but did not include it; as a result, West Berlin remained outside the control of the GDR.

Below is a small collection of pictures of daily life in German Democratic Republic from between the 1950s and 1970s.

See more»

Old Photographs of Warsaw, Poland, ca. 1850s

See more»

Amazing Vintage Photographs of the 'Minnesota Woolly Girl' Alice Elizabeth Doherty

Alice Elizabeth Doherty (the Minnesota Woolly Girl) is a person born with a rare condition known as hypertrichosis. She was born in Minneapolis on March 14, 1887, to normal parents who had a son and another daughter who were also normal. At birth, Alice was covered all over in two-inch long, silky blonde hair.

Alice Elizabeth Doherty began her exhibition career at the age of two. "Alice, as she is called, is only two years of age, but is as bright as a silver dollar and shows intelligence far beyond her years," commented a writer in Waukesha, Wisconsin. "She has pretty blue eyes, and is as frolicsome as a kitten." She also, at the time, had no teeth, and no signs that she would ever grow any.

By the age of 5, she was touring the Midwest with her mother, playing storefront engagements with Professor Weller’s One-Man Band.

Alice's family relocated to Dallas, Texas, sometime between 1900 and 1910, and it was here that Alice retired in 1915. She passed away on June 13, 1933, of unknown causes, at the age of just 46.

See more»

The Beatles Wives and Girlfriends, 1967

September 1967: This fashion study was taken to announce the opening in November 1967 of the Beatles Apple Boutique in Baker Street. Beatles’ wives Pattie Harrison, Cynthia Lennon and Maureen Starkey with Jenny Boyd posed for the stunning portrait taken by Ronald Traeger and commissioned by Brigid Keenan for the Sunday Times. The clothes were designed by Simon, Marijke, Josje and Barry, four designers of The Fool, a four member Dutch design collective and band designed for the Apple Boutique.

Here’s the colorized version of the photo. The colors of Pattie, Cynthia and Maureen’s clothes are accurate as described in the original article published in the legendary first issue of Rolling Stone, November 9, 1967. The colors of Jenny Boyd’s multi-colored outfit are unknown and completely Truth About the Beatles' Girls' blog.

Photo caption:

Beatle wives and a sister-in-law in clothes from the Apple. Left: Pattie Harrison in blue satin shirt and red satin pantaloons. Back center: Cynthia Lennon in pink-purple chiffon dress with a gold lame tunic and mauve stockings. Right: Maureen Starr in apple-green jacket embroidered in gold, over midnight-blue baggy pants applique with yellow stars. Front: Jenny Boyd (Pattie’s sister) in a print trimmed jacket, gathered skirt and chiffon trousers.

Happy Thanksgiving! Here Are 34 Funny Vintage Photos of Celebrities Celebrating Thanksgiving Day

Wishing all of you a very Happy Thanksgiving today!

Doris Day

Jane and Katherine Lee

Leila Hyams

Leila Hyams

Marilyn Monroe

See more»

Armless and Legless Men Riding a Tandem, ca. 1890s

Charles B. Tripp, the armless man and Eli Bowen, the legless man, riding a tandem. ca. 1890s. While the pair posed for promotional photographs one of them spotted a tandem bicycle. In no time at all the two gents not only mounted the bicycle-built-for-two, but rode off together laughing as boys would. The photographer quickly snapped the pair mid-ride and the resulting surreal photograph still draws perplexed smiles.

Charles Tripp and Eli Bowen riding a tandem bicycle, circa 1890s.

Charles B. Tripp - The Armless Wonder

Charles B. Tripp (1855-1930) was a Canadian-American artist and sideshow performer known as the "Armless Wonder".

A native of Woodstock, Ontario, Tripp was born without arms, but learned to use his legs and feet to perform everyday tasks. He was a skilled carpenter and calligrapher and started supporting his mother and sister when he was a teenager. In 1872, Tripp visited P. T. Barnum in New York City and was quickly hired to work for Barnum's Great Traveling World's Fair. He worked for Barnum (and later James Anthony Bailey) for twenty-three years, then toured for the Ringling brothers for twelve years.

On stage, Tripp cultivated a gentlemanly persona and exhibited his skills in carpentry and penmanship. He also cut paper, took photographs, shaved, and painted portraits. For extra income, he signed promotional pictures of himself with his feet. Tripp often appeared in photographs with Eli Bowen, a "legless wonder" from Ohio. In the photographs, the two rode a tandem bicycle, with Tripp pedaling and Bowen steering.

By the 1910s, Tripp was no longer drawing large crowds for the major circuses, so he joined the traveling carnival circuit. He was accompanied by his wife, Mae, who sold tickets for midway attractions. Tripp died of pneumonia (or asthma) in Salisbury, North Carolina, where he had been wintering for several years. He was buried in Olney, Illinois.


Eli Bowen - The Handsomest Man in Showbiz

Eli Bowen (1844-1924) was an American sideshow performer known as "The Legless Wonder", or "The Legless Acrobat". He was also billed as "The Handsomest Man in Showbiz" and the "Wonder of the Wide, Wide World". He was born with his feet attached to his pelvis (without leg bones). One of ten normal children, Eli learned to use wooden blocks in his palms as ‘shoes' thus elevating his torso in order to walk on his hands.

He started his professional career at the age of 13 in various wagon shows before eventually touring independently, performing in dime museums and finally touring Europe with Barnum and Bailey Circus.

He established a reputation for being a magnificent and effortless tumbler and acrobat. He also performed phenomenal feats of strength. Bowen commanded a salary of over $100 a week and had one of the longest lasting and most popular sideshow acts of his era.

Bowen was married and had four healthy sons all of whom became successful and prosperous. Although wealthy and secure, Eli loved life in the public eye and could not give up performing. On May 2, 1924, at age eighty, Eli Bowen passed away just days before a scheduled performance for
The Dreamland Circus at Coney Island.

The Beatles Resting in Their George V Hotel Room, Paris, 1965

John, Paul, George, and Ringo resting in their George V Hotel room with Brian Epstein, Paris, France, photographed by Jean-Marie Périer on June 20, 1965.

14 Marvelous Black and White Photos of Carnaby Street in the 1960s

Carnaby Street is a pedestrianised shopping street in Soho in the City of Westminster, Central London. Close to Oxford Street and Regent Street, it is home to fashion and lifestyle retailers, including a large number of independent fashion boutiques.

The first boutique, His Clothes, was opened by John Stephen in 1958 after his shop in Beak Street burned down and was followed by I Was Lord Kitchener's Valet, Kleptomania, Mates, Ravel, and others.

By the 1960s, Carnaby Street was popular with followers of the mod and hippie styles. Many independent fashion boutiques, and designers such as Mary Quant, Marion Foale and Sally Tuffin, Lord John, Merc, Take Six, and Irvine Sellars had premises in the street and various underground music bars such as the Roaring Twenties opened in the surrounding streets. Bands such as the Small Faces, The Who, and Rolling Stones appeared in the area to work (at the legendary Marquee Club round the corner in Wardour Street), shop, and socialise, it became one of the coolest destinations associated with 1960's Swinging London.

February 1964: Tailor John Stephen, with his Rolls Royce outside his shop.

7 January 1968: A boutique owner holds up Union Jack shirts.

12 May 1966: ‘Living mannequins’ in a shop window.

December 1967: Christmas decorations on the street.

4th April 1966: Tom Jones has a fitting in Gear boutique.

See more»

The Models for 'American Gothic', ca. 1940s

On show with the late Grant Wood’s American Gothic, one of the most famed U.S. paintings of its generation, went the models who posed for it, Nan Wood Graham, the painter’s sister, wife of an oil-station operator, and Dr. B. H. McKeeby, a dentist.

American Gothic is a painting by Grant Wood in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Wood’s inspiration came from what is now known as the American Gothic House, and a decision to paint the house along with “the kind of people I fancied should live in that house.”

The painting shows a farmer standing beside his spinster daughter. The figures were modeled by the artist’s sister and their dentist. The woman is dressed in a colonial print apron evoking 19th-century Americana, and the couple are in the traditional roles of men and women, the man’s pitchfork symbolizing hard labor, and the flowers over the woman’s right shoulder suggesting domesticity.

Retro Photos in WTF Style

A collection of retro photos in the style of WTF will make you laugh.

See more»