Photograph of a Suffragette Chained to Railings in London, ca. 1910

Black and white photograph of a suffragette, standing on the corner of Downing Street, London, chained to railings by a chain that is looped around her waist, ca. 1910. She is standing with her hands behind her back, wearing a wide brimmed hat and long coat. Mounted on cream paper, with a press agency stamp and manuscript notes on the reverse.

(LSE Library)

Suffragettes were astute and inventive, creating new forms of protest to keep their campaign in the public eye. The majority of their actions were peaceful. Despite this, they were usually described as acts of militancy by politicians and the press.

In October 1908 Muriel Matters and Helen Fox from the Women’s Freedom League chained themselves to a grille in the House of Commons Ladies’ Gallery. The grille was one that kept women out of sight. In order to remove Matters and Fox, the grille had to be cut away.

The following April a number of women from the WSPU handcuffed themselves to statues in St Stephen’s Hall in the Palace of Westminster.

These protests were aimed at drawing publicity to the suffragettes’ demands by creating a public spectacle that couldn’t be removed quickly.

Most of us still associate those images of women chained to railings with the militant suffrage campaign. In fact, incidents like this were quite rare and often carried out for very specific purposes.

In January 1908 Edith New and Olivia Smith chained themselves to the railings outside 10 Downing Street. While they distracted the police outside, their companion Flora Drummond slipped inside the building to disrupt a cabinet meeting.

Amazing Vintage Photographs of Amsterdam Taken by George Hendrik Breitner From the 1890s to the 1910s

George Hendrik Breitner (September 12, 1857 – June 5, 1923) was a Dutch painter and photographer. An important figure in Amsterdam Impressionism, he is noted especially for his paintings of street scenes and harbors in a realistic style: wooden foundation piles by the harbor, demolition work and construction sites in the old center, horse trams on the Dam, or canals in the rain. Breitner saw himself as “le peintre du peuple”, the people’s painter, and preferred to work with working-class models: laborers, servant girls and people from the lower class districts.

By 1890, cameras were affordable, and Breitner became very interested in this particular instrument that could help provide reference materials for his paintings. The discovery in 1996 of a large collection of photographic prints and negatives made it clear that Breitner was a talented photographer of street photography. He took various pictures of the same subject, from different perspectives or in different weather conditions. On other occasions, Breitner used photography for general reference, to capture an atmosphere, a light effect or the weather in the city at a particular moment.

Take a look at these 28 stunning vintage black and white photographs of the streets and people of Amsterdam from the 1890s to the 1910s taken by Breitner:

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Rare Photos of “Early Bird” Aviators by Alfred Husmann

Through his friendship with Alfred Solbrig, son of pioneer aviator Oscar A. Solbrig, Alfred Husmann of Davenport, Iowa became an enthusiastic witness to the test flights and exhibitions of the “Early Bird” flyers. (The “Early Birds” were an elite group of individuals who piloted aircraft prior to the date of December 17, 1916).

“Early Bird” aviators by Alfred Husmann

Oscar Solbrig had received training at the Glenn Curtiss flight schools in Hammondsport, NY and San Diego, CA, and by 1914 was successfully flying his home-built Curtiss pusher biplane over the city of Davenport. His wife Mary served as his mechanic (or “mechanician”) and accompanied him on the exhibition circuit.

In addition to the Solbrigs, Alfred Husmann had an opportunity to see Lincoln Beachey, Rene Simon, Katharine Stinson, and Charles Lindbergh at exhibitions in the Quad Cities, and reports in his reminiscences that he once serviced Amelia Earhart’s Stanley Steamer automobile at his station when she was enroute from Cedar Rapids to Chicago.

The photos in this album from the State Historical Society of Iowa are a sampling of images from a photo album (on a variety of subjects) that belonged to Alfred Husmann.

Bleriot monoplane of Rene Simon, French aviator who toured the U.S. in 1911-1912 with Moisant International Aviators, Davenport, Iowa, 1911

Alfred Solbrig, son of aviator Oscar A. Solbrig, sitting in his father's Curtiss hydroaeroplane, on banks of the Mississippi River beside the Crescent railroad bridge, Davenport, Iowa, circa 1912

Model airplanes in flight, 1912. These probably belonged to the Oscar Solbrig family

Oscar A. Solbrig's Curtiss hydroaeroplane being towed out of the Mississippi River with rowboat, near Davenport, Iowa, circa 1912

Oscar A. Solbrig in his Curtiss pusher biplane, Davenport, Iowa, circa 1914

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Uniforms Worn by Researchers During Experiments With Plague in the Philippines, ca. 1912

This photo from the archives of the National Museum of Public Health shows two plague researchers in the Philippines wearing protective masks/uniforms. In 1912, Dr. Heiser, chief quarantine officer, and director of health of the Philippine Islands discovered that the Third Plague had already reached the country.

(National Museum of Public Health)

The Third Plague, said to have originated in the Yunnan Province in China in 1855, was the last major pandemic of plague. Unlike the Black Death which claimed the lives of millions of Europeans, the Third Plague was mostly bubonic plague. This means that it’s less deadly but still highly virulent as evidenced by over 12 million deaths in China and India alone.

By the end of October, 1912, Dr. Heiser reported 17 cases of plague in Manila, with 15 deaths. The plague began in the freight warehouse of the Manila & Dagupan Railway Co. where several dead rats were discovered. It initially claimed the lives of 2 laborers, with 11 other employees also stricken with the plague.

According to a journal article found in the Public Health Reports (1896-1970), the spread of the plague was arrested through effective measures which include moving of all the goods in affected warehouses. The buildings were also “thoroughly saturated with kerosene and then wet down with carbonic solution.”

(via Filipi Know)

Amazing Vintage Photos of London Buses Used to Take British Soldiers to the Western Front During World War I

When the First World War broke out, the era of the horse bus drew to a close. London’s largest bus operator, the London General Omnibus Company (LGOC), had replaced all its horse buses with motor buses in 1911 and 1912. A few other bus operators continued to use horses until August 1914.

These new vehicles, especially the B type bus, manufactured first by the LGOC and later by the Associated Equipment Company (AEC), were of interest to the War Department because of their reliability. They were built of interchangeable parts, which made roadside repairs much easier. In the first few months of the war, the War Department requisitioned approximately 1,000 London buses, over a third of the LGOC’s fleet.
 

Some of these vehicles were used for war service in Britain. Others were shipped from large commercial ports, such as Avonmouth, and travelled mainly to France and Belgium, although some went as far as Greece.

The versatility of these motor buses meant they were put to a variety of uses. Many were converted into lorries, with others serving as ambulances, mobile workshops or even mobile pigeon lofts.  

However, their most familiar use was as troop carriers, transporting troops between the camps and the front lines. The troop carriers had their windows replaced with wooden planks for safety. Each bus could carry 25 soldiers, which was fewer than the 34 passengers they carried in London. Numbers were halved on the top deck to prevent the bus becoming too top heavy on uneven roads. 

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33 Vintage Photos of Japanese Women Dressing in Kimono in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries

The kimono is a traditional Japanese garment and the national dress of Japan. The kimono is a T-shaped, wrapped-front garment with square sleeves and a rectangular body, and is worn left side wrapped over right. The kimono is traditionally worn with a broad sash, called an obi, and is commonly worn with accessories such as zōri sandals and tabi socks.

Kimono life in old Japan

Kimono have a set method of construction and are typically made from a long, narrow bolt of cloth known as a tanmono, though Western-style fabric bolts are also sometimes used.

There are different types of kimono for men, women and children, varying based on the occasion, the season, the wearer’s age, and - less commonly in the modern day - the wearer’s marital status. Despite perception of the kimono as a formal and difficult to wear garment, there are types of kimono suitable for every formality, including informal occasions. The way a person wears their kimono is known as kitsuke.

In the present day, the kimono is not typically worn as everyday dress, and has steadily fallen out of fashion as the most common garment for a Japanese person to own and wear. Kimono are now most frequently seen at summer festivals, where people frequently wear the yukata, the most informal type of kimono; however, more formal types of kimono are also worn to funerals, weddings, graduations, and other formal events. Other people who commonly wear kimono include geisha and maiko, who are required to wear it as part of their profession, and rikishi, or sumo wrestlers, who must wear kimono at all times in public.

Despite the low numbers of people who wear kimono commonly and the garment's reputation as a complicated article of clothing, the kimono has experienced a number of revivals in previous decades, and is still worn today as fashionable clothing within Japan.

A set of colorized photos from Okinawa Soba (Rob) that shows what kimono life in old Japan looked like in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

A couple of dancing girls taken in a 19th century Yokohama studio

Adapting a hallway carpet to human bondage for the sake of fashion

Adjusting the ties of the bride's kimono

An obi mechanic replacing a rusty bolt

Dying kimono fabrics. Textile art for geisha and maiko

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35 Amazing Vintage Photographs Record Life in Wyoming From Between the 1900s and 1910s

Laura Webb Nichols (1883–1962) got her first camera on her 16th birthday, October 28, 1899, as a gift from Bert Oldman, a miner who would become her first husband the following year and the subject of many of her early photographs.

The earliest photographs are of her immediate family, self-portraits, and landscape images of the cultivation of the region surrounding the mining town of Encampment, Wyoming. In addition to the personal imagery, the young Nichols photographed miners, industrial infrastructure, and a small town’s adjustment to a sudden, but ultimately fleeting, population increase. The images chronicle the domestic, social, and economic aspects of the sparsely populated frontier of south-central Wyoming.

As early as 1906, Nichols was working for hire as a photographer for industrial documentation and family portraits, developing and printing from a darkroom she fashioned in the home she shared with her husband and their children. After the collapse of the copper industry, Nichols remained in Encampment and established the Rocky Mountain Studio, a photography and photofinishing service, to help support her family. Her commercial studio was a focal point of the town throughout the 1920s and 1930s.

Elva and Carrie Hinman, 1902

Mabel Wilcox, 1902

1902

Bert Oldman, 1906

Nora and Irwin Fleming, 1906

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Gorgeous Portrait Photos of Classic Beauties by Fred Hartsook in the 1910s

Born 1876 in Marion, Indiana, American photographer Fred Hartsook was the owner of a California studio chain described as “the largest photographic business in the world” at the time. He later became the owner of the Hartsook Inn, a resort in Humboldt County, and two ranches in Southern California on which he reared prized Holstein cattle.

Classic beauties taken by Fred Hartsook in the 1910s

Even if the bulk of the business came from everyday studio portraiture, Hartsook gained prominence through his celebrity clients, which included silent era Hollywood actors such as Mary Pickford, Lillian Gish, and Carlyle Blackwell, other celebrities such as pilot Charles Lindbergh, entrepreneur Henry Ford, and opera singer Geraldine Farrar, and politicians like House leaders Champ Clark and Joseph Gurney Cannon.

In 1919, Fred Hartsook married Bess Hesby, who in 1915 was “Miss Liberty” at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. He died in 1930 at the age of 53.

These gorgeous photos are part of his part that Fred Hartsook took portraits of classic beauties in the 1910s.

Ann Forrest by Hartsook Photo, circa 1910s

Ann Forrest by Hartsook Photo, circa 1910s

Ann Forrest by Hartsook Photo, circa 1910s

Ann Forrest by Hartsook Photo, circa 1910s

Billie Burke by Hartsook Photo, circa 1910

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Greta Looking Not So Promising as a Teenager, Here Are Some Rarely Seen Childhood Photographs of Greta Garbo

On September 18, 1905 a baby girl was born on the Stockholm island of Södermalm. Her parents would give her the name Greta Lovisa Gustafsson. How could anyone know that the young infant would one day become the world’s most famous woman? A woman whom everyone would come to know as Garbo.

Garbo was a shy daydreamer as a child. She disliked school and preferred to play alone. Garbo was a natural leader who became interested in theatre at an early age. She directed her friends in make-believe games and performances, and dreamed of becoming an actress. Later, Garbo would participate in amateur theatre with her friends and frequent the Mosebacke Theatre. At the age of 13, Garbo graduated from school,and, typical of a Swedish working-class girl at that time, she did not attend high school. She later acknowledged a resulting inferiority complex.

Garbo first worked as a soap-lather girl in a barber shop before taking a job in the PUB department store where she ran errands and worked in the millinery department. After modeling hats for the store’s catalogues, Garbo earned a more lucrative job as a fashion model. In 1920, a director of film commercials for the store cast Garbo in roles advertising women’s clothing. Her first commercial premiered on December 12, 1920. In 1922, Garbo caught the attention of director Erik Arthur Petschler, who gave her a part in his short comedy, Peter the Tramp.

From 1922 to 1924, she studied at the Royal Dramatic Theatre’s Acting School in Stockholm. Here she met Sweden’s leading film director, Maurtiz Stiller, who became her mentor: first, he changed her name to “Greta Garbo,” and then, when MGM studio chief Louis B. Mayer offered him a contract to come to Hollywood, he brought his protégé along. Garbo and Stiller arrived in New York in 1925 and were introduced to photographer Arnold Genthe. Fascinated by Garbo’s eyes and by “what is behind that extraordinary forehead,” Genthe persuaded her to sit for a photo session that transformed her career. The results of this sitting, soon published in Vanity Fair magazine, convinced MGM that Garbo had a very special quality, and she was quickly signed to a contract.

Still only twenty, Garbo had a bit more baby fat than fit the MGM mold, teeth that needed straightening, and a mop of hair that was entirely too frizzy. The studio glamour doctors went to work, and her metamorphosis yielded results. In 1926 Garbo made an auspicious Hollywood debut in The Torrent, and the next year played opposite John Gilbert—then one of the screen’s most popular leading men—in what became a tremendous box-office hit, Flesh and the Devil. Their chemistry sizzled both on and off the set, and they would be paired in several other films, including Love (1927), A Woman of Affairs (1928), and Queen Christina (1933).

As the Los Angeles Times noted at the time, Garbo represented an “utterly different type” of movie star. Earlier stars such as Mary Pickford or Lillian Gish conveyed innocence; Colleen Moore and Gloria Swanson were prototypic Jazz Age flappers; Clara Bow had “It.” But all seemed dull and dated when the screen filled with Garbo’s lambent aloofness and sophistication. Her evanescent movie image was enhanced by the art of still photography, particularly the 4,000 photographs taken between 1929 and 1941 by MGM’s chief photographer, Clarence Sinclair Bull.

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Vintage Photos of People Posing With Paper Moons in the Early 20th Century

Paper moons were particularly popular from the 1900s through to the 1930s, and especially in the United States, though examples exist from other countries, including Australia.

Paper moons were a feature of traveling fairs, as a photo booth where people would go to have their picture taken by a professional photographer, at a time when photography was not as accessible to everyday people.

The song “It’s Only a Paper Moon” was published in 1933 and the movie Paper Moon was released in 1973, by which time the paper moon photo booths were no longer as common themselves. Developments in photography through the early twentieth century meant more and more people had access to equipment.

Here is a set of vintage photos that shows portraits people posing with paper moons in the 1900s and 1910s.

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Do Not Believe Him

In WWI there were numerous campaigns aimed at slowing the spread of this debilitating disease that can stop an army in its tracks. This poster was produced by the American Social Hygiene Association warns young men not to have causal sex because it is likely they will contract VD.

If some ‘wise guy’ tells you that sexual intercourse is not dangerous, the facts are:

• A girl who would yield to one man has probably had relations with another. Very likely she is diseased.
• Most prostitutes (private or public) have either syphilis or gonorrhea or both.
• Furthermore, there are no antiseptics, prophylactic treatments or other preventives which assure absolute safety.

33 Amazing Vintage Posters Designed by Marcello Dudovich

Born 1878 in Trieste, Italian painter, illustrator, and poster designer Marcello Dudovich relocated from Trieste to Milan in 1897 after attending a professional art school. In 1899, he transferred to Bologna, working here for the publisher Edmondo Chappuis, designing billboards, book covers and illustrations for publications such as Italia Ride in 1900 e Fantasio in 1902. Here he met Elisa Bucchi, his future wife.

Posters designed by Marcello Dudovich

In 1900, Dudovich won the “Gold Medal” at the Paris World Fair. He designed some of his well-known posters, including “Mele di Napoli” (Apples from Naples) and “Borsalino”. In the 1920s he made several posters for the Milan department store, La Rinascente, and in 1922 he was appointed artistic director of “Igap”.

In 1930, he designed a prominent poster for Pirelli. After the Second World War he moved away from the world of commercial art, concentrating instead on his painting.

Marcello Dudovich died in Milan from a cerebral hemorrhage in 1962. He is celebrated as one of Italy’s greatest poster artists. Here below is a set of amazing vintage posters designed by Marcello Dudovich in the early 20th century.

E. & A. Mele & Ci., Napoli, Novità Estive, circa 1900s

Federazione Italiana, Inchiostri da Scrivere, circa 1900s

Mele & Ci, Napoli, circa 1900s

"Rapid", Nuovi Inchiostri da Scrivere Sopraffini, circa 1900s

Bitter Campari, Milano, 1900

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