Torches of Freedom: Photographs of Women Smoking Publicly During the Easter Sunday Parade in 1929

Cigarette companies began selectively advertising to women in the late 1920s. In 1928 George Washington Hill, the president of the American Tobacco Company, realized the potential market that could be found in women and said, “It will be like opening a gold mine right in our front yard.” Yet some women who were already smoking were seen as smoking incorrectly. In 1919 a hotel manager said that women “don’t really know what to do with the smoke. Neither do they know how to hold their cigarettes properly. Actually they make a mess of the whole performance.” Tobacco companies had to make sure that women would not be ridiculed for using cigarettes in public and Philip Morris even sponsored a lecture series that taught women the art of smoking.

On March 31, 1929, at the amidst of the Easter Sunday Parade in New York City, a young woman, Bertha Hunt, stepped out into the crowded Fifth Avenue and lights up a Lucky Strike cigarette. This act, however, is not advertising for Lucky Strike or for any other cigarette brand for that matter. It is a public relations campaign, aimed at encouraging women to have equal opportunities – including the right to smoke and not be classified as a “fallen woman” – the name given to prostitutes and “characterless” women.

Miss Hunt issued the following communiqué from the smoke-clouded battlefield: “I hope that we have started something and that these torches of freedom, with no particular brand favored, will smash the discriminatory taboo on cigarettes for women and that our sex will go on breaking down all discriminations.”

The incident was highlighted even more because the press had been informed in advance of Hunt’s course of actions, and had been provided with appropriate leaflets and pamphlets. Eddie Bernays – the father of public relations – whose secretary just so happened to be, Bertha Hunt, cleverly arranged this public relations campaign. Apart from the issue of smoking being taboo amongst women, there was also the issue that, “…women didn’t care for the green packaging of lucky strikes, and the manufacturer concluded that changing the color was too expensive.” Bernays was able to address this problem by incorporating the similar shade of green into the latest women’s fashion. This, in turn, made women subconsciously like the green and associated the packaging of the cigarettes with that of their clothing.

While walking down the street Hunt told the New York Times that she first got the idea for this course of action when a man on the street asked her to extinguish her cigarette as it embarrassed him. “I talked it over with my friends, and we decided it was high time something was done about the situation.” The New York Times dated April 1, 1929 ran a story titled, “Group of Girls Puff at Cigarettes as a Gesture of Freedom”. As women all over the country took to this new found symbol of their emancipation aggressively, Bernays must have had the last laugh at the ironic date of the story.

Mrs. Taylor-Scott Hardin parades down New York’s Fifth Avenue with her husband while smoking “Torches of Freedom,” a gesture of protest for absolute equality with men, 1929.

Edith Lee smokes a cigarette on the “Torches for Freedom” march, New York, 1929.

Ten young women followed Bertha Hunt that day down Fifth Avenue, brandishing their torches of freedom. The audience’s imagination was captured as newspapers enthusiastically reported on this new scandalous trend. Bernays used “sexual liberation as a form of control.” The days that followed saw Bernays not only emphasizing the liberation movement for women as far as cigarettes were concerned, but also waxing eloquence on its slimming properties and glamour quotient that ensured women getting hooked to Lucky Strikes. Sales doubled from 1923 to 1929. Bernay’s justified his $25,000 paycheck to Hill and their fruitful association continued for another 8 years that saw a miraculous jump in the sales of cigarettes. While voting rights were yet to be granted to women, Eddie Bernays got them an equally symbolic though hollow torch of freedom in a spectacular fashion.

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50 Fascinating Color Photographs Capture Everyday Life in South Korea in the 1950s

In the 1950s South Korea had an underdeveloped, agrarian economy that depended heavily on foreign aid. The military leadership that emerged in the early 1960s and led the country for a quarter century may have been autocratic and, at times, repressive, but its pragmatic and flexible commitment to economic development resulted in what became known as the “miracle on the Han River.”

During the next three decades, the South Korean economy grew at an average annual rate of nearly 9 percent, and per capita income increased more than a hundredfold. South Korea was transformed into an industrial powerhouse with a highly skilled labour force.

In the late 20th century, however, economic growth slowed, and in 1997 South Korea was forced to accept a $57 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF)—then the largest such rescue in IMF history. The country also wrestled with reforming the chaebŏl and liberalizing its economy. Nevertheless, its economy enjoyed a recovery in subsequent years, and the country entered the 21st century on a relatively firm economic footing.

A gallery of 50 fascinating vintage photographs below shows what life looked like in South Korea in the 1950s.

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35 Handsome Portrait Photos of Alan Ladd in the 1940s

Born 1913 in Hot Springs, Arkansas, American actor Alan Ladd found success in film in the 1940s and early 1950s, particularly in Westerns, such as Shane (1953) and in films noir.

Ladd was often paired with Veronica Lake in noirish films, such as This Gun for Hire (1942), The Glass Key (1942), and The Blue Dahlia (1946). His other notable credits include Two Years Before the Mast (1946), Whispering Smith (1948), which was his first Western and color film, and The Great Gatsby (1949).

In 1950, the Hollywood Women’s Press Club voted Ladd the easiest male star to deal with in Hollywood. The following year, a poll from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association listed Ladd as the second most popular male film star in the world, after Gregory Peck.

Ladd’s popularity diminished in the mid 1950s, though he continued to appear in numerous films, including his first supporting role since This Gun for Hire in the smash hit The Carpetbaggers in 1963.

Ladd died of an accidental combination of alcohol, a barbiturate, and two tranquilizers in 1964, aged 50. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1601 Vine Street. His handprint appears in the forecourt of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. In 1995, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars was dedicated to him.

Take a look at these vintage photos to see a young and handsome Alan Ladd in the 1940s.

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Photos of Margaret Thatcher and Mikhail Gorbachev Flirting and Playing in Moscow’s Gorky Park, 1987

It’s 1987, and business as usual in the Cold War. Relations between Britain and the USSR are strained, so imagine the shock when images surfaced of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev flirting, fondling and kissing in Moscow’s Gorky Park, during Thatcher’s tour of the Soviet Union.

The Daily Mirror broke the ‘story’, thanks to some clever use of lookalikes and compelling ‘quotes’. The photos were posed by lookalikes but they succeeded in fooling thousands of readers. Many of them expressed shock that Thatcher, a married woman, would act like that in public.

After Thatcher left Moscow on April 2, she told reporters on her plane that she and Gorbachev “got on very well, considering that we are very different and hold very different views.”

40 Vintage Photos Capture Lovely Moments of Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner in the 1950s and ’60s

Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner first married on December 28, 1957, in Scottsdale, Arizona. On June 20, 1961, the couple announced their separation in a joint press release, and divorced ten months later on April 27, 1962.

Following this starter marriage, Wood dated Warren Beatty, Michael Caine and David Niven Jr.. She also had a broken engagement in 1965 with shoe manufacturer Ladislav Blatnik.

On May 30, 1969, Wood married British producer Richard Gregson after dating for nearly three years. They had a daughter, Natasha (born 1970). Wood filed for divorce from Gregson on August 4, 1971, and it was finalized on April 12, 1972.

After a short-lived romance with future California governor Jerry Brown, Wood resumed her relationship with Wagner at the end of January 1972. They remarried on July 16 aboard the Ramblin’ Rose, anchored off Paradise Cove in Malibu.

Wood died under mysterious circumstances on November 28, 1981 at age 43 during the making of Brainstorm while on a weekend boat trip to Santa Catalina Island on board Wagner’s yacht Splendour. Outside of drowning, many of the circumstances are unknown; it was never determined how she entered the water.

These beautiful vintage photos captured lovely moments of young couple Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner in the 1950s and early 1960s.

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20 Amazing Photographs of Eric Clapton on the Stage in the 1970s and 1980s

Eric Clapton is already in the music business for almost 50 years and is considered one of the best guitarists of all time. However, he almost had a shorter career due to his addiction during the 1970s.

“I don’t know how I survived, the seventies especially,” he told Classic Rock Magazine in an interview in 2017. “There was one point there where they were flying me to hospital in St Paul [Minnesota] and I was dying, apparently. I had three ulcers and one of them was bleeding. I was drinking three bottles of brandy and taking handfuls of codeine and I was close to checking out. And I don’t even remember. It’s amazing that I’m still here, really.”

Clapton finally kicked his drug habit and reemerged onto the music scene in 1973 with two concerts at London’s Rainbow Theater organized by his friend Pete Townshend of The Who. Later that year he released 461 Ocean Boulevard, featuring one his most popular singles, a cover of Bob Marley’s “I Shot the Sheriff”. The album marked the beginning of a remarkably prolific solo career during which Clapton produced notable album after notable album. Highlights include No Reason to Cry (1976), featuring “Hello Old Friend”; Slowhand (1977), featuring “Cocaine” and “Wonderful Tonight”; and Behind the Sun (1985), featuring “She’s Waiting” and “Forever Man”.

In 1985, Clapton found a new audience following his performance at the worldwide charity concert, Live Aid. Annual stands at the Royal Albert Hall and successful albums like August, Journeyman and the Crossroads box set kept him well in the public mind. In the late 1980s, he carved out a second career as the composer of film scores. His career went from strength to strength and reached new heights in 1992 with the release of Unplugged and the Grammy winning single, “Tears In Heaven.”

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The Story Behind David Bowie’s Infamous Mugshot, 1976

In the early morning hours of March 21, after a concert at the Community War Memorial arena in Rochester, David Bowie was arrested on a felony pot possession charge. The Thin White Duke, 29 at the time, was nabbed along with Iggy Pop and two other codefendants at the Americana Rochester Hotel. Bowie was held in the Monroe County jail for a few hours before being released. The below Rochester Police Department mugshot was taken four days after Bowie’s arrest, when the performer appeared at City Court for arraignment.

The Bowie mugshot was recovered by Gary Hess while he was working for a local auction house which was clearing out the estate of a retired Rochester police officer. Gary recognized the man in the picture as Bowie and literally rescued it from the garbage.

Because he was falling behind on bills and needed the extra money, Gary gave the photo to his brother, Todd Hess, to sell on eBay. The photo sold in the fall of 2007 for more than $2,700 to an “uber fan” in the midwest who had some connection with the superstar. According to Todd, the buyer made Bowie aware that she had purchased the mugshot; and, she reported, Bowie was pleased that she won the one-of-a-kind item.

According to reports in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, the cops found 182 grams (a little over 6.4 ounces) of marijuana there. Bowie and three others — Pop, a bodyguard named Dwain Voughns, and a young Rochester woman named Chiwah Soo — were charged with fifth-degree criminal possession of marijuana, a class C felony, punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

Bowie and Pop were booked under their real names, David Jones and James Osterberg Jr. The group spent the rest of the night in the Monroe County Jail and were released at about 7 a.m. on $2,000 bond each. They were supposed to be arraigned the next day, but Bowie left town to go to his next concert in Springfield, Massachusetts. His lawyer appeared and asked for the court’s indulgence, explaining the heavy penalties for breaking concert engagements. He promised the judge that Bowie would appear the following morning on March 25.

Bowie showed up for his arraignment looking dapper in his Thin White Duke clothing. It was then that his mug shot was taken — so we’ll never actually know what Bowie looked like when he was unexpectedly dragged into jail at 3 a.m. The police escorted the rock star in and out of the courtroom mostly through back corridors, shielding him from a crowd of fans who showed up at the courthouse. Reporter John Stewart describes the scene in the next day’s Democrat and Chronicle:

Bowie and his group ignored reporters’ shouted questions and fans’ yells as he walked in — except for one teenager who got his autograph as he stepped off the escalator.

His biggest greeting was the screams of about a half-dozen suspected prostitutes awaiting arraignment in the rear of the corridor outside the courtroom.

Asked for a plea by City Court Judge Alphonse Cassetti to the charge of fifth-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, Bowie said, “not guilty, sir.” The court used his real name — David Jones.

He stood demurely in front of the bench with his attorneys. He wore a gray three-piece leisure suit and a pale brown shirt. He was holding a matching hat. His two companions were arraigned on the same charge.

The defense lawyer told the judge that Bowie and the others had never been arrested before. The judge allowed them to remain free on bond until a grand jury convened. Bowie and his entourage went on with their tour, and the grand jury eventually decided not to indict anyone.

(via Open Culture)

Stunning Portraits of Gloria Swanson in the 1920s

In the mid-1920s, Gloria Swanson (March 27, 1899 – April 4, 1983) was considered the most bankable star of her era. She made a number of financially successful films for Famous Players-Lasky during her seven years at the company, but decided to turn down a one-million-dollar-a-year contract with Paramount in order to join United Artists. Similar to many actresses at the time, Swanson started her own production company, which was the umbrella organization for her agreement with United Artist.

Under the Swanson Producing Corporation, she produced The Love of Sunya (1927) with herself in the title role. Swanson’s decision made her a notable exception, as actresses rarely got involved in the business side, while Swanson herself chose to handle the details of her company.

In 1927, Swanson’s company moved forward with Sadie Thompson (1928), a movie considered extremely controversial due to its subject matter. The film turned out to be a financial and critical success, earning Swanson her first nomination for Best Actress at the first annual Academy Awards. She, however, was in dire financial straits by the end of 1927, as her two productions failed to generate income quick enough to offset her production loan debts. Swanson made her sound film debut in The Trespasser (1929), also a financial and critical success, earning her a second Academy Award nomination.

Take a look back at a stunning Swanson in the Twenties through 24 beautiful vintage portraits:

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Vintage Photos of Victorian People Posing Next to the Windows

The most common Victorian house style is Folk Victorian. The classic Victorian styles (Gothic Revival, Italianate, Second Empire, Stick Style, Romanesque Revival, and Shingle Style) were created by professional architects, and were built mostly by the well-to-do.

The lower reaches of the middle class certainly shared the same Victorian urge to live in a fashionable house, and if they couldn’t afford a professional architect. They could design the house themselves, or have a local carpenter do it.

In either case, the design was likely to be an unprofessional but possibly still charming pastiche, including elements of styles that were still currently fashionable among the upper crust, and elements of styles that definitely were not. Also, the house would naturally tend to be smaller and plainer than the what the wealthy could afford.

Here below is a set of vintage photos that shows what the windows looked like from the 19th century.

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35 Fascinating Photos Capture Everyday Life of Daytona Beach in the 1970s

Daytona Beach is a city in Volusia County, Florida, United States. It lies approximately 51 miles (82.1 km) northeast of Orlando, 86 miles (138.4 km) southeast of Jacksonville, and 265 miles (426.5 km) northwest of Miami.

Daytona Beach is a principal city of the Deltona–Daytona Beach–Ormond Beach metropolitan area. It is also a principal city of the Fun Coast region of Florida.

The city is historically known for its beach, where the hard-packed sand allows motorized vehicles to drive on the beach in restricted areas. This hard-packed sand made Daytona Beach a mecca for motorsports, and the old Daytona Beach Road Course hosted races for over 50 years. This was replaced in 1959 by Daytona International Speedway. The city is also the headquarters for NASCAR.

Take a look at these fascinating photos from Flickr members to see what Daytona Beach looked like in the 1970s.

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Cycling in Toronto in the Early 20th Century

The omnipresence of the bicycle and bike culture in 1890s Toronto far surpasses anything we know today. But remarkably, the political issues associated with cycling are almost unchanged.

In the 1890s Toronotonians were preoccupied with the question of ‘scorchers’: those riders who traveled too quickly, ignored rules of the road, and endangered pedestrians. Similarly, there was a concerted effort to improve the quality of the city’s streets for cyclists. The ‘Good Roads Campaign’ argued that city council needed to set aside more money to pave roads for the benefit of the bike rider. Though, unlike today, their priority was to make suburban roads more bike-friendly to allow for people to leave the city easily on weekends.

Finally, cyclists successfully courted political power. Candidates for both the mayoralty and council made a point of wooing the biking lobby, often showing up at meetings of cyclists to expound upon their respective platforms. If there was an important question in Toronto, the bike unions were sure to be involved somehow.

By the end of World War II, however, the cycling heyday was over. Cycling as something like a movement, or aspect of civic consciousness, or popular sport, didn’t really return until the 1980s, and gain serious momentum in the 2000s.

Cycling club in Toronto, 1900

A leisurely ride Jarvis Street, 1903

Bay Street, 1907

Boys cycling across Lakeshore Road bridge at Mimico, 1907

Walking it up the hill to St. Clair, 1907

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