Vintage Everyday

July 26, 2014

Pictures of Paris Under the Water Through Amazing Vintage Photographic Postcards in 1910

July 26, 2014 1910s, accident & disaster, event & history, France, life & culture, Paris, street, weather

In late January 1910, following months of high rainfall, the Seine River flooded Paris when water pushed upwards from overflowing sewers and subway tunnels, and seeped into basements through fully saturated soil. The waters did not overflow the river's banks within the city, but flooded Paris through tunnels, sewers, and drains. In neighbouring towns both east and west of the capital, the river rose above its banks and flooded the surrounding terrain directly.

Winter floods were a normal occurrence in Paris, but, on 21 January, the river began to rise more rapidly than normal. Over the course of the following week, thousands of Parisians evacuated their homes as water infiltrated buildings and streets throughout the city shutting down much of Paris' basic infrastructure. Police, fire-fighters, and soldiers moved through waterlogged streets in boats to rescue stranded residents from second story windows and to distribute aid. Refugees gathered in makeshift shelters in churches, schools, and government buildings. Although the water threatened to overflow the tops of the quay walls that line the river, workmen were able to keep the Seine back with hastily built levees.

Out the Window and Into the Boat (1910)

Avenue Montaigne (January 29th, 1910)

The Flooding of the Seine (January-February 1910)

A Gallant Officer (1910)

The fall in level of the Seine 1910. Rue Véron - A work crew creating a "trench" to help the draining of the waters.

Meet Alice Liddell, the Little Girl Who Inspired Lewis Carroll to Write “Alice in Wonderland”

July 26, 2014 1800s, celebrity & famous people, children & youth, England, event & history, facts, life & culture, portraits

Alice Pleasance Liddell (1852–1934) was the middle daughter of Henry George Liddell, Dean of Christ Church at Oxford. Alice, along with her sisters Edith and Lorina, first met Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) on April 25, 1856, as he and a friend were setting up to photograph Christ Church Cathedral from the garden of the Dean’s residence.

Over the next few years, Carroll would become a close friend of the Liddell family. Alice and her sisters were frequent models for Carroll’s photography, and he often took the children on outings.

On July 4th, 1862, Carroll and the Rev. Robinson Duckworth took the girls boating up the Isis. Alice later recalled that as the company took tea on a shaded bank, she implored Carroll to “tell us a story.”

According to Carroll, “in a desperate attempt” and “without the least idea what was to happen afterwards,” he sent his heroine “straight down a rabbit-hole.” Upon Alice’s urging, Carroll began writing down his tale. On November 26, 1864, he presented her with an elaborate hand-illustrated manuscript, titled Alice’s Adventures Under Ground.

When Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was published a year later, Alice Liddell became immortalized as the inspiration for Carroll’s much-loved literary character. But unlike the fictional “Alice,” Alice Liddell grew up. By the time Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There was published, she was almost 20 years old, and Carroll’s close friendship with the Liddell family had weakened. His sequel can be seen as a fond farewell to Alice as she enters adulthood.

In 1880, Alice married amateur cricket player Reginald Hargreaves. She lived the cultured life of a country lady in Lyndhurst, England. She had three sons, two of whom were killed in World War I. To help pay taxes after the death of her husband, Alice put the original Under Ground manuscript up for auction in 1928. The manuscript fetched £15,400, nearly four times the reserve price given it by Sotheby’s auction house. It later became the possession of Eldridge R. Johnson and was displayed at Columbia University on the centennial of Carroll’s birth.

Alice was present, aged 80, and it was on this visit to the United States that she met Peter Llewelyn Davies, one of the brothers who inspired J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan. Upon Johnson’s death, the book was purchased by a consortium of American bibliophiles and presented to the British people “in recognition of Britain's courage in facing Hitler before America came into the war”. The manuscript resides in the British Library.

After her death in 1934, Alice was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium and her ashes were buried in the graveyard of the church of St Michael and All Angels Lyndhurst. A memorial plaque, naming her “Mrs. Reginald Hargreaves” can be seen in the picture in the monograph. Alice’s mirror can be found on display at the New Forest Heritage Centre, Lydhurst, a free museum sharing the history of the New Forest.

Alice Liddell in Summer 1858. (Photo by Lewis Carroll)

Liddell dressed in her best outfit, 1858. (Photo by Lewis Carroll)

Alice Liddell, Summer 1858. (Photo by Lewis Carroll)

Alice Liddell as a beggar-maid, 1858. (Photo by Lewis Carroll)

Alice Liddell (right) with sisters Edith Mary Liddell and Ina Liddell, ca. 1859. (Photo by Lewis Carroll)

Amazing Vintage Photographs That Show Paris Street Style of 1906

July 26, 2014 1900s, fashion & clothing, female, France, life & culture, Paris, street

Edward Linley Sambourne (1844-1910) was an English cartoonist and illustrator most famous for being a draughtsman for the satirical magazine Punch for more than forty years and rising to the position of ‘First Cartoonist’ in his final decade.

Alongside his career as an illustrator, Sambourne had a passion for photography. He was 62 in 1906. He might have been slowing down a little, as it happens he only had four years to live. But he was still full of energy, and still an enthusiastic photographer. He took a few trips abroad that year including the one in June to Paris, then as now the centre of European fashion.

A prosperous couple alight from a carriage.

Two fashionable women cross the boulevard, skirts lifted to avoid the dusty surface of the street.

Two women walking up.

Two women on the way down, their ankles well concealed.

This woman, younger than the others strides confidently up the steps.

July 25, 2014

15 Beautiful Fashion Shots of Barbara Mullen as a Model in the 1950s

July 25, 2014 1950s, fashion & clothing

Barbara Mullen (1914–1979) was an American actress well known in the UK for playing the part of Janet, the housekeeper, in Dr Finlay's Casebook. Although the role of Janet brought her fame in later years, she had already made her mark in the theatre.

Barbara Mullen poses with her arms wide and mouth open in front of a black Rolls-Royce. New York, circa 1950s. Image by © William Helburn/Corbis

Barbara Mullen on the Boardwalk, St. Tropez, 1957. Photographed by Georges Dambier.

Wearing an evening gown by Dior, photo by Norman Parkinson taken at ‘The pillars of Quwat-Ul-Islam Mosque’, Dehli, India.

Barbara Mullen wearing a rose-printed cotton shirt by Digby Morton for Simpson and slacks in leaf-green linen by Daks. India, British Vogue 1956. Photographed by Norman Parkinson.

Vogue August 1956

Amazing Fashion Photography by Martin Munkacsi From Between the 1930s and 1940s

July 25, 2014 1930s, 1940s, fashion & clothing, female, photography

In his day, the Hungarian Martin Munkacsi (1896–1963) was one of the most famous photographers in the world. His dynamic photographs of sports, entertainers, politics, and street life in Germany and Hungary from the late 1920s and 1930s, were taken in a new, freewheeling style that captured the speed and movement of the modern era. Many of those early photographs were published in German photo weeklies, where Munkacsi made his reputation doing reportage, often from exotic locales.

In 1933, Munkacsi turned his energetic style to fashion photography, making images of models running on the beach. Those pictures revolutionized fashion photography with their informality and vitality. Soon after he was offered a contract by Carmel Snow, the editor of Harper’s Bazaar, and he left for New York, where he made his fame and fortune.