18th Century Prosthetic Nose Made by a Man Who Had Lost His Nasal Cartilage

The 28-year old man did not only lose his nose, but also most of the cartilage of the nasal cavity and a large part of the palate. The mouth and nose together formed a gruesome hole. The poor man had a trick to bring his tongue out through his nasal cavity. After designing a prosthesis for himself of a artificial nose and palate, he learned again to speak and was enabled to eat and drink.

According to the Museum Vrolik, the cause of his facial trauma is unknown. Syphilis can cause, among other things, the loss of one’s nose. Though at a stage that severe, the brain is often also damaged to an extend that it’s unlikely that the man was able to function. Tuberculosis is another candidate, or an unfortunate accident.

This prosthetic shows how a young man tried to cope with his impairment. Mind you, this is the 1700s, well before World War I, when the production of prosthetics really kicked off – with soldiers coming back from the trenches with all sorts of parts missing. This patient had to be creative and try to conjure up some solution to make his life less miserable.⁣

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(Photos by Frank Wiersema, via the Museum Vrolik)

40 Beautiful Photos of Ruth Chatterton From Between the 1910s and ’30s

Born 1892 in New York City, American actress, aviatrix and novelist Ruth Chatterton made her Broadway stage debut in The Great Name in 1911. Her greatest success onstage came in 1914, when she starred in the play Daddy Long Legs, adapted from the novel by Jean Webster.

Chatterton was cast in her first film role in Sins of the Fathers in 1928. Her first film for Paramount was also her first sound film, The Doctor’s Secret, released in 1929. Later that year, she starred in Madame X. The film was a critical and box-office success, and effectively launched her career. For her work in the film, Chatterton received her first nomination for an Academy Award for Best Actress.

In 1930, Chatterton starred in Sarah and Son. The film was another critical and financial success, and she received a second Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, and was voted the second female star of the year, behind only Norma Shearer, in a poll conducted by the West Coast film exhibitors. Her final film was A Royal Divorce (1938).

Chatterton was one of the few female pilots in the United States at the time. She retired from film acting but continued her career on the stage. She had several TV roles beginning in the late 1940s and became a successful novelist in the 1950s.

Chatterton died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1961 at the age of 68. For her contribution to the motion-picture industry, Ruth Chatterton has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 6263 Hollywood Blvd. She is also a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame.

Take a look at these vintage photos to see the beauty of young Ruth Chatterton from between the 1910s and 1930s.

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Kay Francis and William Powell Publicity Photos For ‘One Way Passage’ (1932)

One Way Passage is a 1932 American pre-Code romantic film starring William Powell and Kay Francis as star-crossed lovers, directed by Tay Garnett and released by Warner Bros. The screenplay by Robert Lord won the Academy Award for Best Story.

This was the sixth time that Powell and Francis played together, and it was their biggest moneymaker. Francis’ gowns were created by Orry-Kelly, who had just joined Warner Bros. in 1932. He went on to win three Academy Awards for costume design.

According to Warners records, the film earned $791,000 in the US and Canada and $317,000 elsewhere. This success led the studio to remake the film in 1940.

These beautiful photos captured portraits of Kay Francis and William Powell together during their filming of One Way Passage in 1932.

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Atomic Bomb Hairdos From the 1940s and 1950s

Here’s how the atomic bomb inspired hairdressers in the 1940s and 1950s.

Liliana Orsi, a 22-year-old beauty in Rome, Italy, displays her new atomic hairdo and the photo of the atomic blast which inspired it. It took a hair stylist 12 hours to arrange Liliana’s coiffure, so it’s not recommended for daily wear. It’s an old fashion and something dangerously new.

(Acme Newspictures – March 8, 1951)

The photo is of the Crossroads BAKER test from 1946. It’s actually kind of an atypical image of an atomic bomb explosion — it only looks like that because it was detonated underwater, and that white outer cloud dissipated within a few seconds (the actual mushroom cloud is the darker cloud inside that white misty cloud).

(U.S. Army Photographic Signal Corps)

What these press agents won’t think of! From one Las Vegas beauty salon comes this hair style, modeled by showgirl Terry True. And that big upsweep at the top is supposed to symbolize a mushroom cloud effect of a bomb explosion. The dark ring is a switch, with a jeweled clip to brighten things up.

(AP Wirephoto – February 8, 1951)

(Mansfield News-Journal – April 29, 1946)

(La Grande Observer - July 30, 1946)

(via Weird Universe)

In 1843, Inventor Henry Cole Created the Very First Christmas Card

This is the world’s first commercial Christmas card. It was commissioned by Henry Cole in 1843. 1,000 of these Christmas cards were printed, and Cole used as many as he required before selling the rest for 6d (sixpence) each. This price that made them a luxury item, unavailable to the working class.

The world’s first commercially produced Christmas card, designed by John Callcott Horsley for Henry Cole in 1843.

This advert for the card appeared in the Athenaeum paper:

“Just published. A Christmas Congratulation Card: or picture emblematical of Old English Festivity to Perpetuate kind recollections between Dear Friends.”

Henry Cole (1808 – 1882) was a prominent civil-servant, educator, inventor and the first director of the V&A. In the 1840s, he was instrumental in reforming the British postal system, helping to set up the Uniform Penny Post which encouraged the sending of seasonal greetings on decorated letterheads and visiting cards. Christmas was a busy time in the Cole household and with unanswered mail piling up, a timesaving solution was needed. Henry turned to his friend, artist John Callcott Horsley to illustrate his idea.

Cole’s diary entry for 17 December 1843 records, “In the Evg Horsley came & brought his design for Christmas Cards”. Horsley’s design depicts three generations of the Cole family raising a toast in a central, hand-colored panel surrounded by a decorative trellis and black and white scenes depicting acts of giving; the twofold message was of celebration and charity. Cole then commissioned a printer to transfer the design onto cards, printing a thousand copies that could be personalized with a hand-written greeting. Horsley himself personalized his card to Cole by drawing a tiny self-portrait in the bottom right corner instead of his signature, along with the date “Xmasse, 1843”.

Greetings card, John Callcott Horsley, 1843, England. Museum no. MSL.3293-1987. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Cole’s Christmas card was also published and offered for sale at a shilling a piece, which was expensive at the time, and the venture was judged a commercial flop. But the 1840s was a period of change, with Prince Albert introducing various German Christmas traditions to the British public, including the decorated Christmas tree.

Cole may have been ahead of his time but the commercialization of Christmas was on its way, prompted by developments in the publishing industry. More affordable Christmas gift-books and keepsakes were aimed at the growing middle classes, and authors responded to the trend: Charles Dickens wrote Christmas themed stories for Household Words and All the Year Round and published A Christmas Carol in 1843. By the 1870s the Christmas trend was firmly established.

(via Victoria and Albert Museum)

Life From Gilgit (Pakistan) to Kashgar (China) in the Mid-1980s Through Amazing Photos

The Karakoram Highway or the China-Pakistan Friendship Highway is a 1,300 km (810 mi) national highway which extends from Hasan Abdal in the Punjab province of Pakistan to the Khunjerab Pass in Gilgit-Baltistan, where it crosses into China and becomes China National Highway 314.

Karakoram Highway in September 1986

The highway connects the Pakistani provinces of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa plus Gilgit-Baltistan with China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. It is a popular tourist attraction and is one of the highest paved roads in the world, passing through the Karakoram mountain range, at 36°51′00″N 75°25′40″E at maximum elevation of 4,714 m (15,466 ft) near Khunjerab pass.

Due to its high elevation and the difficult conditions in which it was constructed, it is often referred to as the Eighth Wonder of the World. The highway is also a part of the Asian Highway AH4.

Here below is a set of wonderful photos that shows a road trip of John Jackson through Karakoram Highway in September 1986 from Gilgit in Northern Pakistan, to Kashgar in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China.

Shopkeeper in Gilgit or further north in Gulmit, northern Pakistan

Near Sust, Northern Pakistan. We stopped for fuel, and this man was on foot, carrying his stuff in a bindle

Sust, Northern Pakistan. About an hour from the actual border crossing to China in the Khunjerab Pass

Sust, Northern Pakistan. Travellers keep warm while waiting at the customs and immigration post about an hour from the Chinese border at Khunjerab Pass

Sust, Northern Pakistan. Truckers await inspection and paperwork at Sust customs post

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30 Beautiful Photos of Ruby Dee From Between the 1940s and ’60s

Born 1924 in Cleveland, Ohio, American actress Ruby Dee originated the role of “Ruth Younger” in the stage and film versions of A Raisin in the Sun (1961). Her other notable film roles include The Jackie Robinson Story (1950) and Do the Right Thing (1989).

For her performance as Mahalee Lucas in American Gangster (2007), Dee was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Female Actor in a Supporting Role. She was a Grammy, Emmy, Obie and Drama Desk winner, and also a National Medal of Arts, Kennedy Center Honors and Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award recipient.

Dee was also a poet, playwright, screenwriter, journalist, and civil rights activist, she married to Ossie Davis, with whom she frequently performed until his death in 2005. She died in 2014 at her home in New Rochelle, New York from natural causes at the age of 89.

Take a look at these beautiful photos to see portrait of a young Ruby Dee from between the 1940s and 1960s.

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