Sexual Revolution: 19th Century Photographs From Personal Collection of Sexologist Richard von Krafft-Ebing

Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing (1840–1902) was an Austro-German psychiatrist. He published extensively on hypnosis, criminology, and sexual behavior. He is famous for his book Psychopathia Sexualis (1886), a study of “sexual perversity,” and for his coinage of the terms “sadism” (after the name of Marquis de Sade) and “masochism” (using the name of a contemporary writer, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, whose partially autobiographical novel Venus in Furs tells of the protagonist's desire to be whipped and enslaved by a beautiful woman).

Krafft-Ebing was both praised and condemned for his work—praised for opening up a new area of psychological study, condemned for immorality and for justifying and publicizing homosexuality. His work, although not necessarily intentionally, laid the foundation for the “Sexual Revolution” of the later twentieth century in which sexual abstinence and the sanctity of marriage were no longer valued and promiscuity and homosexuality became popularized.

The photographs featured here are part of Krafft-Ebing’s personal collection. It is unknown where they came from or who the people featured in the photographs are, although, at least the first two photographs appear to be unusual specimens of the “French postcard” which was so popular in the late-19th century. One assumes the photographs are linked to Krafft-Ebing’s studies, but as for how or where they were produced and procured is a mystery.

Man with a mustache dressed in women's clothing; he is wearing an exotic costume with corset type doublet and hose, carrying a whip.

Man standing with arms joined above head, wearing a corset type belt, tasselled skirt and ladies calf length stud-fastening boots. He has his hands raised above his head on a ballet style pose.

Man standing facing background and turning head towards front, wearing corset or bodice, ladies shoes and thigh high stockings, long gloves and holding an open fan above his head with both arms.

Man seated, wearing ladies shoes and stockings, ruffle or lace edged open top (bare chested) and shorts or skirt, holding up an open fan. He is seated on a table with his feet resting on a stool.

Man on all fours in red jacket with fully clothed woman riding him and holding a whip. 

See more»

Stevie Nicks Can Kill You! Funny Pictures of the Front-Woman of Fleetwood Mac Practicing Some Karate Moves With Her Security Guard in the 1980s

These pictures from Bob Jones' Hands Off, a self-defense guide for women in 1983, which also featured Stevie Nicks on the cover. Bob was a bodyguard for Stevie and Chris. The photographs captured Stevie practicing some karate moves with her security guard Bob Jones in the garden of her LA home.

“On the day of the shoot I was standing in my martial arts training uniform, wearing my Black Belt. Then Stevie appeared, her hair done to resemble the mane of a lion. She was psyched up for some serious photographing. Stevie wore her familiar thick-soled, thick-heeled, knee-high brown suede kid leather boots. High roll-over socks appeared over the top of these elegant Swedish boots and hung tentatively around her knees.” – Bob Jones recalled.

“The seductiveness of her partially exposed cleavage was the next thing any red-blooded male would have his attention drawn to... Stevie also had on the most unusual dress, with a snow white multi-layered, multi-lengthed hem-line. The white chiffon had multi-colored flowers. With the sun behind us during the shoot, Stevie would kick, sometimes over my head, so her dress would spread like a giant Japanese fan or butterfly wing.

“In these kicking-style photographs the sun also made her dress partially see-through: just enough to be artistically interesting.

“This lady was a professional: in two hours I had a hundred of the most magnificent photos ever offered to the martial arts, and just one would make the cover.”

See more»

Pictures of the Book Rescuers in 1951

A small collection of photos from the LIFE Archives, taken by Thomas Mcavoy, show the sheer awesomeness of librarians. Pictured in 1951 drying out state library books damaged by fighting the Lewis Cass State Office Building fire in Lansing, Michigan; it was quite the undertaking.

The fire was started by a 19 year-old Naval Reservist who feared being sent to war in Korea and thought that “a little fire” would gain him the probationary status he coveted. The 1951 disaster destroyed much State property, including some government records. The fire proved an object lesson on the importance of record keeping. Many documents were unrecoverable and proper inventories didn’t exist.

See more»

The HOLE Book: This Delightful Children's Book Teaching Kids Gun Safety in 1908

Long before Richard Scarry or Dr. Seuss, an American artist delighted a generation of children and their parents with hilarious, topsy-turvy illustrations and slightly subversive tales told in rhyme. This was illustrator/author Peter Newell. Working over eighty years ago, Newell remains as profoundly enjoyable-and incredibly popular-as ever. Tuttle is proud to be reissuing his three classic works, sure to delight the young and old alike.

While fooling with a gun, little Tom Potts shoots a bullet that seems to be unstoppable. A literal hole on each page traces the bullet’s path as it wreaks havoc across various scenes until it meets its match in a particularly sturdy cake. Peter Newell built a reputation in the 1880s and 1890s for his humorous drawings and poems, which appeared in Harper’s Weekly, Harper’s Bazaar, Scribner’s Magazine, The Saturday Evening Post, Judge, and other publications.

He later wrote and illustrated several popular children’s books, such as Topsys and Turvys (1893), a collection of poems and images which could be viewed upside-down or right-side-up; The Hole Book (1908) and The Slant Book (1910), which took the shape of a rhomboid and told the story of a baby carriage careening down a hill.

See more»

Make Your Friends Some SUPER 80’s Valentine’s!

From 1980 Cleo comes this gigantic 11 x 17-ish book of Super Friends valentines!

Sure you’ve got your standard “I think you’re neat, Valentine!” sort of stuff, but there’s also 30 punch out “action” valentines! Fold here, insert tab A into slot B, etc… What fun!

Mark Anderson of Andertoons scanned in High Resolution images from an old Super Friends Action Valetines Playbook. Get start making some really fun old school Valentine’s cards for all your friends!

Have a Super Valentine’s Day!

See more»

These Pages From a 1902 Weird Phrenology Book Can Help You Ascertain a Person’s Character by the Shape of Their Features

Illustrations from Vaught’s Practical Character Reader, a book on phrenology by L. A. Vaught published in 1902. As he confidently states in his Preface:

The purpose of this book is to acquaint all with the elements of human nature and enable them to read these elements in all men, women and children in all countries. At least fifty thousand careful examinations have been made to prove the truthfulness of the nature and location of these elements. More than a million observations have been made to confirm the examinations. Therefore, it is given the world to be depended upon. Taken in its entirety it is absolutely reliable. Its facts can be completely demonstrated by all who will take the unprejudiced pains to do so. It is ready for use. It is practical. Use it.

The book lays out the 42 known elements of human nature and how they're made manifest in people's heads, noses, ears and chins.

It's both fascinating and disturbing to look through the diagrams from old phrenology texts. Although phrenology was at the height of its popularity during the first half of the 19th century, it enjoyed a bit of resurgence in the early 20th century.

While the author expounds with conviction on “cruel eyes,” “selfish ears” and “gross, sensual chins,” the illustrator provides diagrams and pictures which have cemented the book as a classic in the genre of unintentional humor.

See more»

22 Vintage Ads for How-To Sex Books From Between the 1950s and 1970s

Old magazines, especially men-only rags, were brimming with advertisements for sex advice books. During the 1950s, it wasn’t easy for a young man to get the know-how he needed to feel confident when that special moment arrived.

See more»

Books About Titanic Love Stories – 6 True Tales of Love on the Titanic

Titanic the movie captures a romance between aristocratic passenger Rose DeWitt Bukater and third-class artist Jack Dawson, but the real-life love that played out during the tragedy is just as captivating and heartbreaking.

The stories of high-class couples like millionaire John Jacob Astor IV, the richest man on the Titanic, and his pregnant young wife, as well as tales of working class lovers aboard the ship have been chronicled in books that often include photos, article clippings, and firsthand interviews. Here are six titles to add to your reading list.

1. Titanic Love Stories

The stories of 13 honeymooning couples make up Titanic: Love Stories. Each, from John Jacob Astor and wife Madeleine to third-class emigrants Neal and Eileen McNamee, is given a chapter that includes photos, a map of their cabin, the story of how they met, and what happened to them that night.


2. A Titanic Love Story

Ida and Isador Straus's Titanic ordeal is a thing of legend. The German-Jewish immigrants were a well-suited couple. He was the owner of Macy's, a member of congress, and a philanthropist, and she was an intelligent and capable matriarch of the family. In the movie Titanic, they are last seen holding each other in their room as the water takes over. A Titanic Love Story: Ida and Isidor Straus chronicles the tale of the Strauses, who both went down with the ship. Ida reportedly put her foot in a lifeboat, but then decided to go back on the ship and share the fate of her husband.


3. And the Band Played On: The Titanic Violinist and the Glovemaker

The grandson of a Titanic survivor wrote And the Band Played on: The Titanic Violinist and the Glovemaker, about his grandparents: Jock Hume, a Scottish violinist on the ship, and Jock's pregnant fiancée who was back at home. Jock was playing on the deck of the ship until it went down, but the book continues after the sinking. The author explains the dark impact his grandfather's death had on the two Scottish families back home.


4. Lifeboat No. 8

Lifeboat No. 8 follows the fate of one lifesaving boat, which carried the wealthy Countess of Rothes and her maid Roberta Maioni. As she watched the ship go down, Roberta held tight the photo of her love, Jack Phillips, the Titanic's radio operator who remained on the ship to send out the SOS signal. Roberta and Jack may have inspired the characters played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet in the film.


5. Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage

Told by a historian, Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage includes the personal narratives of the high-profile people who didn't make it off the ship. The book describes the elegance of the ship before the crash and the mayhem that ensued after, all while offering insight into the politics, culture, and sexual conventions of the time.


6. A Night to Remember

The 1955 classic from Walter Lord, A Night to Remember: The Classic Account of the Final Hours of the Titanic, was written close enough to the sinking that it includes tons of gripping firsthand interviews from the survivors. It also includes a passenger list in the back, detailing who survived and who perished.

The book recalls how men, after saying goodbye to their wives and children, went back to the staterooms, donned their finest clothes, and prepared to die as gentlemen. It also explains the tragedy of having half-full lifeboats sent out to sea. Since men weren't allowed to accompany women, many of the women and children waited until the end to get on the boats, meaning life-saving space on the boats went empty.

(via POPSUGAR)

For Book Lovers, Bookmobiles Are Oddly Romantic! Here Are 23 Fascinating Vintage Photos of American Bookmobiles From the Past

Bookmobiles have a proud history of service dating back to the late 1850s, when a horse-drawn collection of books began making the rounds in Cumbria, England. Here in the United States, the first bookmobile is widely attributed to Mary Lemist Titcomb, a librarian in Washington County, Maryland, who in 1905 posited “Would not a Library Wagon, the outward and visible signs of the service for which the Library stood, do much more in cementing friendship?”

For book lovers, bookmobiles are oddly romantic. They seem like dream-machines, very real automobiles rolling through our lives in an almost impossible fashion. Let's read anytime, anywhere as good as possible!

The library's first bookmobile, 1927

A very old library bookmobile of America, ca. 1900s

The Chicago Public Library Bookmobile

Bookmobile of the Los Angeles public library, 1960

Bookmobile, Eltingville, Staten Island, ca. 1920

See more»

Marilyn Monroe Reads Joyce’s Ulysses at the Playground, 1955

During the 1950s, the pioneering photojournalist Eve Arnold took a series of portraits of Marilyn Monroe. The now iconic photos generally present Monroe as a larger-than-life celebrity and sex symbol. Except for one.

In 1955, Arnold photographed Monroe reading a worn copy of James Joyce’s modernist classic, Ulysses. It’s still debated whether this was simply an attempt to recast her images (she often played the “dumb blonde” character in her ’50s films), or whether she actually had a pensive side. (Her personal library, catalogued at the time of her death, suggests the latter.) But, either way, Arnold explained years later how these memorable photos came about:

“We worked on a beach on Long Island. She was visiting Norman Rosten the poet... I asked her what she was reading when I went to pick her up (I was trying to get an idea of how she spent her time). She said she kept Ulysses in her car and had been reading it for a long time. She said she loved the sound of it and would read it aloud to herself to try to make sense of it — but she found it hard going. She couldn’t read it consecutively. When we stopped at a local playground to photograph she got out the book and started to read while I loaded the film. So, of course, I photographed her. It was always a collaborative effort of photographer and subject where she was concerned — but almost more her input.”

See more»