Mugshots of Bertha Liebbeke aka Fainting Bertha, One of the Midwest’s Most Infamous Pickpockets

Bertha Liebbeke (often spelled Liebke), known by the alias “Fainting Bertha,” was one of the American Midwest’s most notorious pickpockets during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Bertha’s 1899 CDV mugshot (front and back) listed her many aliases. Her occupation was given as “prostitute,” possibly an effort by police to blacken her name. (History Nebraska)

A Chicago detective named Clifton Woolridge described Bertha as a “girlish young woman, with the baby dimples and skin of peach and cream, the innocent blue eyes, and the smiles that play so easily over her face as she talks vivaciously and with keen sense of both wit and humor.” Woolridge was clearly smitten with Bertha Liebekke, and he was not the only man to fall into her trap.

She was born in March 1880 in Council Bluffs, Iowa. When she was in her mid-teens, Bertha’s father, William, died. Soon after his death she was diagnosed with St. Vitus Dance (now called Sydenham’s chorea), an infectious disease resulting in uncontrollable twitching and jerking movements of the victim’s face, hands and feet. The diagnosis got her sent to the Iowa Institution for Feeble-Minded Children in Glenwood. Due to age restrictions she was later transferred to the Iowa State Hospital for the Insane in Clarinda. She remained there for less than a year.

After her release from the mental hospital, Bertha claimed a man named Gunther seduced her. She also claimed he schooled her in the art of “larceny from the person.” She proved to be an excellent student. Not only was she good at getting the goods, she developed a unique approach to pickpocketing that took advantage of her beauty.

Bertha would locate a prosperous-looking gentleman in a crowd and smile demurely at him. Intrigued, he would come closer. When he got next to her, she would be suddenly overcome by a dizzy spell. The gallant gentleman would catch the lovely lady just in time to keep her from hitting the ground. She heaved a sigh, came to and thanked him, but not before she’d picked her rescuer’s pockets so skillfully that he didn’t notice the theft until she was long gone. When they reported their losses to the police, none of Bertha’s victims suspected her as the culprit.

Even after news reports about “Fainting Bertha” made her the most notorious female pickpocket in the Midwest, men continued to walk into her trap. She could steal anything—a wallet, a diamond stickpin, a gold watch—without batting an eyelash.

Margaret Reilly was one of Bertha’s many aliases. (Pittsburgh Daily Post, Feb. 22, 1925)

Before long Bertha was traveling by boat and train to all the big Midwestern cities, robbing conductors and passengers along the way. She also used her nimble fingers to steal from department stores, including Marshall Field’s in Chicago, where Detective Woolridge made her acquaintance. Over the course of her career she used at least nine aliases. By the turn of the century her photo graced the walls of every rogues’ gallery in the Midwest.

Being photographed by the police didn’t bother Bertha in the least. She smiled beguilingly when, as inmate #5693, she was photographed at the Nebraska State Penitentiary, where she’d been sent after a conviction for grand larceny.

Bertha smiled in her mugshots taken at the Nebraska State Penitentiary. (History Nebraska)

It was becoming clear that all was not well with Bertha’s mind. She suffered periodic bouts of insanity so intense it was impossible for prison guards, doctors or hospital attendants to control her. In the grip of one of these attacks, which often occurred at night, she had been known to break every window she could reach while screaming profanities at the top of her lungs. Her mood swings were extreme—one minute she was calm and the next, she was crying hysterically.

Unfortunately for hospital and prison officials, Bertha was not only good at stealing jewelry and cash, she also had a talent for lifting keys and picking locks. In 1905, when she was a patient in an insane asylum in Kankakee, Illinois, she escaped and tried to set fire to herself. By 1907 she’d been housed in seven different penitentiaries and asylums and she’d escaped a dozen times from them. She also frequently threatened to commit suicide. Back and forth between the hospital and the prison Bertha went.

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A Young Patti Smith Photographed by Norman Seeff in New York, 1969

In 1969, Patti Smith was still living on the margins of New York’s art world. She was known mainly as a poet, reading her work in small downtown spaces, drifting between cheap rooms, bookstores, and the Chelsea Hotel orbit. Rock stardom was not yet part of the picture. She dressed simply, often borrowing men’s clothes, cultivating a look that felt instinctive rather than styled. What mattered to her was language, attitude, and presence, not polish.

Norman Seeff, at the same time, was just beginning to define his photographic voice. He was fascinated less by celebrity than by creative tension, the psychological state of artists before they became icons. When he photographed Patti Smith in New York, he wasn’t documenting fame; he was witnessing potential.

The shoot took place in a studio on West 72nd Street and Amsterdam Avenue (or, by some accounts, in a kitchen in the Chelsea Hotel). Because Seeff was still learning how to interact with subjects, the session was informal and raw. You can even see photographic equipment in the background of some shots, which later became part of Seeff’s signature “behind-the-scenes” style.

What makes the photographs significant in hindsight is how fully formed Patti Smith already seems. Years before Horses (1975) and her emergence as the godmother of punk, the images already contain her defiance, vulnerability, and poetic gravity. You can see the same spirit that would later electrify CBGB and reshape rock imagery—only here, it’s still unfiltered and unsure of its own future.

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Richard Ansdell: A Master of Victorian Animal and Sporting Art

Richard Ansdell (1815–1885) was a distinguished British painter of the Victorian era, renowned for his exceptional skill in depicting animals, sporting scenes, and the rugged beauty of the Scottish Highlands.

Rising from a humble background in Liverpool, Ansdell became a celebrated member of the Royal Academy and was often considered a formidable rival to the famous Sir Edwin Landseer. His work is characterized by a meticulous attention to anatomical detail and a dramatic sense of narrative, whether he was portraying the intense energy of a hunt, the quiet life of a Highland shepherd, or powerful social themes as seen in his masterpiece, The Hunted Slaves.

His immense popularity during his lifetime was so significant that the district of Ansdell in Lancashire was named in his honor, making him the only English artist to have a town bear his name. Today, his paintings remain vital cultural records of 19th-century rural life and the enduring bond between humans and animals.

The Hunted Slaves

A Family Portrait

A Highlander with Setters and Game

A Warm Welcome

Andalusian Gallant

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35 Advertising Posters For Cigarette and Cigar in the Early 20th Century

In the early 20th century, advertising posters for cigarettes and cigars emerged as a dominant art form, blending commercial interest with the aesthetic movements of the time, such as Art Nouveau and Art Deco. Unlike the text-heavy ads of the previous century, these posters relied on bold visual storytelling and vibrant color lithography to capture the public's imagination.

Tobacco companies hired renowned illustrators to create iconic imagery that associated smoking with prestige and luxury. For cigars, posters often featured tropical landscapes or regal figures to emphasize the “exotic” and premium nature of the tobacco. Meanwhile, cigarette posters began to shift toward lifestyle branding, depicting the “New Woman” or the “Sophisticated Gentleman” to make smoking appear as an essential accessory for modern life.

These posters were not just advertisements, they were powerful cultural artifacts that utilized psychological triggers, such as social belonging, health claims, and romanticism, to cement tobacco’s place in the daily routine of the early 1900s.

Manufacture de cigares C. Müller & Co, Payerne, Switzerland, circa 1900

Cigarettes Saphir, circa 1900s

Cigarillos Paris, Fides, 1900

Los Cigarrillos Paris son los mejores, circa 1900s

Murad, The Turkish Cigarette, 1900

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40 Photos of Mary Tyler Moore in the 1970s

Mary Tyler Moore (December 29, 1936 – January 25, 2017) was an American actress, producer, and social advocate. She is best known for her roles on The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961–1966) and The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970–1977), which “helped define a new vision of American womanhood” and “appealed to an audience facing the new trials of modern-day existence.”

Debuting on CBS on September 19, 1970, the sitcom followed Mary Richards, an associate producer at WJM-TV in Minneapolis. It won 29 Emmy Awards during its run, a record at the time. The show is cited as a landmark of second-wave feminism for its realistic depiction of workplace dynamics, equal pay, and female friendship.

Alongside her husband Grant Tinker, she co-founded MTM Enterprises in 1969/1970. The studio produced her namesake show and other 1970s hits like Rhoda, Phyllis, and The Bob Newhart Show.

In 1969, at age 33, Moore was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. She maintained a private but active lifestyle, becoming a vocal advocate for diabetes research later in her life.

After her show ended in 1977, she ventured into variety television with Mary (1978) and The Mary Tyler Moore Hour (1979). She concluded the decade by filming the dramatic role of Beth Jarrett in Ordinary People (released in 1980), which earned her an Academy Award nomination.

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30 Wonderful Portraits of Marianne Faithfull in the 1970s

Marianne Evelyn Gabriel Faithfull (December 29, 1946 – January 30, 2025) was an English singer and actress who achieved popularity in the 1960s with the release of her UK top 10 single “As Tears Go By.” She became one of the leading female artists of the British Invasion in the United States. In the 1970s, Faithfull underwent one of the most extreme and public transformations in music history. She began the decade as the “fallen” muse of the 1960s and ended it as a gravel-voiced icon of the New Wave and Punk era.

In 1970, her high-profile relationship with Mick Jagger ended. This period was marked by her losing custody of her son, Nicholas, and a subsequent suicide attempt. For much of the early-to-mid 1970s, Faithfull lived on the streets of London’s Soho district. She suffered from severe heroin addiction and anorexia nervosa, largely disappearing from the public eye except for occasional, fleeting appearances.

During these years, her once-pure, melodic soprano voice was permanently altered by heavy smoking, drug use, and severe laryngitis. It transformed into the deep, husky, and “scorched” rasp that would later define her career.

Despite her struggles, Faithfull made a few attempts to record music. In 1971, she recorded an album titled Masques (later released in 1985 as Rich Kid Blues), but it was shelved at the time due to her unstable condition. In 1976, she released Dreamin’ My Dreams, a country-influenced album. While it was mostly ignored in the UK, it became a massive hit in Ireland, reaching #1 and proving that she still had an audience.

The end of the decade saw one of the greatest “resurrection” stories in rock history. Faithfull emerged with Broken English (1979), an album that shed her 1960s pop persona entirely. It was aggressive, dark, and politically charged, blending New Wave, reggae, and rock. “The Ballad of Lucy Jordan” became one of her signature tracks, capturing the middle-aged disillusionment that resonated with a new generation of listeners. The song “Why’d Ya Do It?” was so explicit and raw that it was banned in several places, but it solidified her status as an artist who refused to be censored or silenced.

Marianne Faithfull’s 1970s were effectively a bridge from being “Mick Jagger’s girlfriend” to being a formidable, self-directed artist. Here’s a collection of 30 amazing portraits of Faithfull in the 1970s:

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Gunila: The Sculpted Grace of Mid-Century High Fashion

Gunila was one of the most striking faces of the 1950s and ’60s, a model who epitomized the “Nordic look” that fascinated the international fashion world. With her razor-sharp cheekbones, wide-set eyes, and an almost architectural sense of poise, she was a favorite muse for legendary photographers like Philippe Pottier, Irving Penn and Richard Avedon.

Gunila possessed a rare ability to transition from the stiff, aristocratic elegance of early ’50s couture to the youthful, avant-garde energy of the early ’60s. Often draped in the masterpieces of Cristóbal Balenciaga or Christian Dior, she didn’t just wear clothes, she gave them structure and movement.

Whether captured in a stark studio setting or on the chic streets of Paris, Gunila’s presence on the pages of Vogue represented a shift toward a more sophisticated, independent female ideal.

Gunila in black velvet coat lined with quilted satin worn over a black wool dress by Jean Patou, worn with a black fox fur hat, photo by Georges Saad, 1956

Gunila in black velvet dress over white tulle bubble skirt, white tulle also gathered at the décolletage, by Christian Dior, photo by Philippe Pottier, 1957

Gunila in charming dress of black and white mesh with white lace, bodice is black velvet, by Guy Laroche, photo Philippe Pottier, 1957

Gunila in elegant wool suit by Jacques Griffe, photo by Nicole Bukzin, 1957

A single large white rose adorns the crown of this dark green straw cloche by Jean Barthet worn by Gunila, jewelry by Boucheron, photo by Philippe Pottier, 1958

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