Amazing Portraits of the Meskwaki Taken by Josephine Wallace in 1925

The Meskwaki Settlement is an unincorporated community in Tama County, Iowa, United States, west of Tama. This was part of the historic territory of the Meskwaki, an Algonquian people (they were known to English colonists and Americans as the Fox). Since 1857, when Meskwaki bought land here, it has been home to a sizable community of Meskwaki Indians. They are enrolled in the federally recognized Sac and Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa, one of three Sac and Fox tribes in the United States. The others are located in Oklahoma and Kansas.

Meskwaki portraits Taken by Josephine Wallace in 1925

Josephine Martha Wallace (1867–1960) was the daughter of “Uncle Henry” Wallace, owner and editor of Wallaces Farmer magazine and aunt of U.S. Vice-President Henry A. Wallace. She lived and operated a studio in Des Moines, eventually moving to Tucson, Arizona in the 1930s where she continued her photography and also taught music classes.

According to information that appeared with their exhibition, these portraits by Wallace from State Historical Library and Archives of Iowa were taken at the Meskwaki Settlement (Tama, Iowa) in 1925 by special arrangement of Edgar R. Harlan, Curator of the Iowa State Department of History and Archives. Exhibit information further states: “Several of the Indians shown have never before been photographed. Miss Wallace is the only woman who has ever been present at certain of the tribal ceremonies.”

Albert Brown, Meskwaki Settlement, Tama, Iowa, 1925

Albert Brown, Meskwaki Settlement, Tama, Iowa, 1925

Albert Davenport, Meskwaki Settlement, Tama, Iowa, 1925

Albert Davenport, Meskwaki Settlement, Tama, Iowa, 1925

Charley Keosantuck with bow and arrow, Meskwaki Settlement, Tama, Iowa, 1925

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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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Found Kodachrome Slides of an Iowa High School Girl’s Basketball Team in the 1950s

Janesville is a city in Black Hawk and Bremer counties in the U.S. state of Iowa. It is part of the Waterloo–Cedar Falls Metropolitan Statistical Area. 

Janesville is located on the county line between Bremer and Black Hawk counties, and is bisected by the Cedar River. The city has a total area of 1.49 square miles (3.86 km2), of which 1.44 square miles (3.73 km2) is land and 0.05 square miles (0.13 km2) is water.

A set of Kodachrome slides was found by Steven Martin that shows the girl’s basketball team of a high school in Janesville in the 1950s.

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February 3, 1959: The Day the Music Died: Photos From the Plane Crash That Killed Buddy Holly and Others in Iowa

On February 3, 1959, American rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and “The Big Bopper” J. P. Richardson were killed in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa, together with pilot Roger Peterson. The event later became known as “The Day the Music Died,” after singer-songwriter Don McLean referred to it as such in his 1971 song “American Pie.”

At the time, Holly and his band, consisting of Waylon Jennings, Tommy Allsup, and Carl Bunch, were playing on the “Winter Dance Party” tour across the Midwest. Rising artists Valens, Richardson and Dion and the Belmonts had joined the tour as well. The long journeys between venues on board the cold, uncomfortable tour buses adversely affected the performers, with cases of flu and even frostbite. After stopping at Clear Lake to perform, and frustrated by such conditions, Holly chose to charter a plane to reach their next venue in Moorhead, Minnesota. Richardson, who had the flu, swapped places with Jennings, taking his seat on the plane, while Allsup lost his seat to Valens on a coin toss.

Soon after takeoff, late at night and in poor, wintry weather conditions, the pilot lost control of the light aircraft, a Beechcraft Bonanza, which subsequently crashed into a cornfield. Everyone on board was killed.

Buddy Holly’s funeral was held at the Tabernacle Baptist Church in Lubbock, TX, on February 8, 1959, drawing over a thousand mourners. Holly’s widow did not attend. On the same day, Ritchie Valens was buried in San Fernando Mission Cemetery.

The event has since been mentioned in various songs and films. A number of monuments have been erected at the crash site and in Clear Lake, where an annual memorial concert is also held at the Surf Ballroom, the venue that hosted the artists’ last performance.

Holly's band, The Crickets, later memorialized the day in 2016 with a farewell and final concert called “The Crickets and Buddies,” where almost every living member of the band Holly helped form played tribute to the vocal legend’s passing.

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15 Interesting Facts About 'American Gothic' You Might Not Know

No American artwork has been parodied more than Grant Wood's American Gothic. The story behind the painting is that he was driving around the town of Eldon Iowa and saw an old farmhouse that had a fancy window in it, and he thought it was a bit silly to have a fancy window on such a plain house. So he paid his sister and his dentist to pose as a farmer and his daughter.

While this deceptively simple portrait has clearly captured the imagination of the nation, the story behind its creation and rise to fame makes it all the more compelling.

1. It Was Instantly A Big Hit.

American Gothic, 1930 by Grant Wood.

American Gothic was submitted to the 1930 annual exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, where it won a bronze medal and a $300 prize. But that's not all. The Art Institute acquired the piece for its collection. From there, a picture of the prize-winning painting ran in the Chicago Evening Post, then in newspapers across the U.S., gaining fame and popularity with each printing. Eighty-five years later, American Gothic still calls the Art Institute home.


2. American Gothic Made Wood Famous.

Grant Wood, 1941. (Image courtesy of the Figge Art Museum, Davenport, Iowa)

Before this breakthrough, Wood was an unknown 39-year-old aspiring artist, living in the attic of a funeral-home carriage house that he shared with his mother and sister. Although he was toiling in obscurity, artistic training in Europe had taught Wood techniques that led to his big break. Following the success of American Gothic, he became a bit of a media scamp, often rewriting the history and meaning of his painting to best suit a given trend or narrative. And his fans became ravenous, sometimes traveling to his family's home, and walking right into Wood’s quarters uninvited.


3. American Gothic's Inspiration Was A Real And Really Distinctive Home.

American Gothic house.

In the summer of 1930, Wood was visiting Eldon, Iowa to attend an art exhibition. While there he was struck by a little white cottage with a "carpenter Gothic" window on the second floor that Wood found “pretentious” for such a humble home. He sketched out the house on an envelope, providing the base for what would become his most famous painting.


4. It Combined Americana With European Technique.

Inspired by the window that recalled the cathedrals he'd seen in Europe during his training and travels, Wood posed his quintessentially American figures in a "rigid frontal arrangement" that recalls Northern Renaissance art, while mimicking that movement's close attention to detail.


5. The Farmer Was Really A Dentist.

The models: Nan Wood Graham (sister of painter) and Dr. Byron McKeeby with Grant Wood's American Gothic, ca. 1940s.

Seeking a model for the male in American Gothic, Wood asked a favor of his dentist, 62-year-old Byron McKeeby. It's likely McKeeby felt a bit obligated as Wood's constant craving for sugar—even putting it on lettuce—made him a client worth keeping happy. All that time in the exam chair gave Wood ample opportunity to examine McKeeby's strong hands. Of them, he said, "This is a marvelous hand. This has strength. This has character.”

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Portraits of American Teenage Boys of the 1940s

In 1940 as many as 8 out of 10 high school graduate teen boys went to war. The teenage boys and college age young men who remained were part of a new fashion movement that was entirely designed for teens by teens.

Boys adopted men’s clothing for their wardrobe but put on a more casual, relaxed, spin on it. Their styles were not as extreme as the girls but none the less an important shift in fashion history.

Here's a series of photographs of teenage boys taken by LIFE photographer Nina Leen in Des Moines, Iowa in 1945.

Teen-ager dressed up for a week night date.

Teen-age boy drinking coke and eating crackers in bed.

Teen-age boys always carry a comb in their back pocket.

Teenaged boys working on a 1927 Ford Model T.

School dress of average high school boy.

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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.

Pictures of High School Teenagers in Des Moines, Iowa, 1947

Long before the era of Facebook, texting, and clubbing, there's the hopping soda shop scene. LIFE photographer George Skadding documented the lives of Iowa high school teenagers in the late 1940s.

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