30 Vintage Photos Capture People in Their Kitchens in the 1940s

Home design in the 1940s, especially in the kitchen, represented a rapid shift. Older styles and materials were quickly replaced. New ideas took hold, and the kitchen was transformed.

Because of World War II restrictions, it would not be until the late 1940s and into the 1950s that many of these new materials found their way into home design. Chiefly, the rationing of metal adversely affected the production of steel kitchen cabinets. 

Home design styles in the 1940s straddled the 20th century. On the one hand, kitchens were still fairly small. Linoleum was still widely used as a floor covering. Colors often hovered in the range of pastels. Iconographic shapes like scallops, sweeps, and curves were common. Unfinished pine was a favored inexpensive wood often used for kitchen cabinets.

Take a look at these vintage photos to see what kitchens looked like from the 1940s.

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Us Tareyton Smokers Would Rather Fight Than Switch!

“Us Tareyton smokers would rather fight than switch!” is the enduring slogan that appeared in magazine, newspaper, and television advertisements for Tareyton cigarettes from 1963 until 1981. It was the American Tobacco Company’s most visible advertising campaign in the 1960s and 1970s.

The slogan was created by James Jordan of the BBDO advertising agency. The first print advertisement appeared in Life magazine on October 11, 1963. The advertisements would appear solely in print between 1963 and 1966. In 1966, the first television advertisements with the slogan aired.

The target of the campaign was to create a sense of loyalty amongst Tareyton smokers. That led to the “rather fight than switch” campaign, in which the makeup the models wore made it seem as if they were sporting black eyes, presumably earned in battles with smokers of other cigarettes. The slogan received grammar criticism from some quarters, which claimed correct usage should be “we” as the subject pronoun rather than “us”, normally an object pronoun.

Each commercial would begin in a predictable manner; the protagonist would do something that would be considered defiant. In each commercial, the protagonist would say “Us Tareyton smokers would rather fight than switch!”, usually only showing their side profile to the camera. After uttering the slogan, viewers would see the smoker's face, which had a noticeable “black eye” (in reality makeup), proving their willingness to fight for what they believed in, whether it be their tough decision of the day, or their choice to smoke Tareyton cigarettes.

In 1971, radio and television advertisements for tobacco products were banned from American broadcasting stations, and Tareyton’s television jingles ended. However, after the ban, the slogan continued to be used in magazines and newspapers, due to the slogan and the name recognition the brand received. In 1975, the slogan was used to advertise for the Tareyton “100”.

In 1976, the American Tobacco Company, which made Tareyton cigarettes, introduced Tareyton Light cigarettes. In the new advertisements, men and women sported “white eyes,” with an updated slogan: “Us Tareyton smokers would rather light than fight!” The two slogans would be used to sell the two separate variations until 1981, when market value declined.

This slogan was notable in that it was the final slogan used for the Tareyton brand. Declining sales led to an end of advertising the brand.

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40 Amazing Studio Portraits of Welsh Women in Their Dresses From the 1870s

John Thomas (1838-1905) came originally from Cellan, Ceredigion and established a studio known as ‘The Cambrian Gallery’ in Liverpool (various addresses) with a branch in Regent Street, Llangollen. He is famous for the large number of portraits of famous Welsh men, especially non-conformist ministers, which he took on his travels in Wales and he also recorded many buildings but among the surviving 3,000 glass plate negatives of superb quality, there are about 100 of women in Welsh costume. Many of these are labelled with the name of the subjects and the place they were taken. They were not dated but the earliest is pre 1865 and remainder are thought to be 1875 – 1885.

He started as a traveling photographer in 1863 and charged 6d for each portrait. Many of the younger women were photographed outside (providing natural light) with a crudely painted backdrop and mud floor. They all wore a combination of three sets of costume which they presumably borrowed from the photographer. The costumes consist of bright patterned bedgowns with large collars of the north Wales type, either mottled or spotted; an apron of bold check or horizontal stripes and a skirt of vertical stripes either light on dark or dark on light. They didn’t wear a shawl: the neckerchief seems to differ from one subject to the next and the stockings are different (i.e. these belonged to the subjects). Most, but not all wore a frilled cap under a Welsh Hat.

The older women are shown wearing different costumes, suggesting that there were their own. A few of the older women appear to be wearing a tight-fitting, low-cut, short-sleeved top in the style of a bedgown, but the lower part and back are not visible, and the front is often completely covered by a shawl. Most are wearing a fine blouse, shawl, long striped skirt and check apron. Several appear to be wearing separate sleeves on their lower arms.

Some of the portraits are of his family, presumably from Cellan.

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Nine Members of the Surrealists Group in Paris, circa 1933

Paris in the 1920s was full of high hopes following the end of the First World War, the French economy boomed from 1921 until the great depression of the 1930s. ‘Les Annees Folles’ saw Paris re-establish itself as a capital of art, music and cinema.

Surrealism came to the forefront in the 1920s cultural scene, bringing new forms of expression to poetry with authors like André Breton, whose Surrealist Manifesto appeared in 1924, Louis Aragon, Paul Éluard, and Robert Desnos. Émigré artists had created Post-Impressionism, Cubism, and Fauvism in Paris before World War I, and included Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Amedeo Modigliani, and Piet Mondrian, along with French artists Pierre Bonnard, Henri Matisse, Jean Metzinger, and Albert Gleizes.

Surrealists also included artists like Max Ernst, Joan Miró, Salvador Dalí, and Francis Picabia, sculptors like Jean Arp, Germaine Richier and even early film-makers, like Luis Buñuel and René Clair.

From left to right: Tristan Tzara, Paul Éluard, André Breton, Jean Arp, Salvador Dalí, Yves Tanguy, Max Ernst, René Crevel and Man Ray. (Photo by Anna Riwkin-Brick)

Anna Riwkin-Brick (1908–1970) was born in Gomel into a Jewish family in the Russian Empire and came to Sweden with her parents in 1914. She learned ballet for three years as a child at the Stockholm Whitlockska samskolan School, and danced professionally for some time before an injured foot put an early stop to her career.

She was employed as an assistant to the court photographer Moisé Benkow in 1927, and started her own portrait and dance photography studio in Stockholm in 1928. She married the journalist Daniel Brick in 1929 and marketed her work by displaying portraits of young writers and intellectuals from among her husband’s acquaintances. As a former dancer, she remained interested in dance as a subject of photography and illustrated a book on Swedish dance, Svensk Danskonst, published in 1932 and in the following year her photographs were exhibited in the international exhibition Dance and Movement in Paris.

Riwkin spent the summer months of 1933 in Paris along with her friend Thora Dardel, photographing street scenes, architecture, and artists. It was at this point that, through various contacts she had made, she gained the opportunity to meet and take portrait photographs of figures within the surrealist movement, such as Jean Arp, André Breton, Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, and Man Ray among others. Here’s another photograph of the Surrealists group in Paris:

35 Fabulous Photos of Barbara Bach in the 1970s

Born 1946 in Queens, New York City, American actress and model Barbara Bach was one of the most sought-after faces of the 1960s, working with the Eileen Ford Agency in New York, appearing on catalogs and the front covers of several international fashion magazines such as Seventeen, Vogue USA, ELLE France, Gioia Italy, and Figurino Brazil.

Her acting career started in Italy, where Bach played Nausicaa in L’Odissea in 1968, an eight-hour long TV adaptation of Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey, directed by Franco Rossi and produced by Dino de Laurentiis.

Bach is best known for her role as the Bond girl Anya Amasova in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977). She has 28 films to her credit, and was featured in a pictorial in Playboy in January 1981. She also had a cameo in a September 1987 special issue on the Bond girls.

Bach married British musician Ringo Starr, formerly of The Beatles, in 1981. The two met in 1980, on the set of the film Caveman (1981). According to the International Vegetarian Union, they practise vegetarianism.

Take a look at these vintage photos to see portrait of young Barbara Bach in the 1970s.

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Before Bikini, 30 Cool Photos of Women in Swimsuits From the 1930s

The silhouette of the 1930s swimsuit took on direct inspiration from men’s swimsuits (which were still one pieces). Men were encouraged to build a muscular yet lean sportsman’s body. Women also needed to slim down into an athletic body that was tall, lean, and curvy up top to flatter the latest bias cut dresses.

Swimsuits were cut to show off more leg and more back skin than ever before. The thin straps also made the shoulders appear broader and more athletic. It became what we know as the swimsuit today.

In the 1920s, most swimsuits were one solid color only. In the 1930s, a top half and bottom half could each be different colors or have cubist shapes stitched into (or onto) the design for even more color. Belts and decorative ties emphasized the waist. Swimwear was now real fashion.

Take a look at these cool vintage photos to see what swimsuits of women looked like in the 1930s.

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Krazy Kat Klub: A Bohemian Speakeasy and Nightclub With a Treehouse in Washington D.C in the 1920s

The Krazy Kat Klub (or The Kat) was a Bohemian cafe, speakeasy, and nightclub that operated at No. 3 Green Court near Washington D.C.’s Thomas Circle during the early decades of the 20th century. The club was run by portraitist and theatrical scenic designer Cleon “Throck” Throckmorton and its name was borrowed from the title character of a comic strip that was popular at the time.

The Krazy Kat Klub’s entrance was in an alley that led out to Massachusetts Avenue, and during 1921 the entrance door bore a small sign reading “The Krazy Kat” along with a chalk-written warning at the top of the door that read, “All soap abandon ye who enter here.” The club included both an indoor dance floor and an outdoor courtyard for al fresco dining and art exhibitions. The courtyard featured a small tree-house, accessed by a ladder. The Club was also the site of painting classes during the 1920s. In 1919, a reporter for the Washington Post described the Krazy Kat Klub as being “something like a Greenwich Village coffee house,” featuring “gaudy pictures created by futurists and impressionists.”

According to Throckmorton himself, the avant-garde venue “proved not only a club for artists, but a source of supply for musicians and playwrights,” and he claimed that several plays were written on its premises. Writer Victor Flambeau noted that, by 1922, “in imitation of the Krazy Kat, other bohemian restaurants sprang up in Washington to supply the demand” such as the Silver Sea Horse and Carcassonne in Georgetown. Over time, The Kat became one of the most vogue locations for Washington's intelligentsia and aesthetes to congregate.

During its tumultuous half-decade existence, The Kat was declared to be a “disorderly house” by municipal authorities and was raided by the metropolitan police on several occasions during the Prohibition period. One particular raid in February 1919 reportedly interrupted a violent brawl inside the club, during which a shot was fired. The surprise raid resulted in the arrests of 25 krazy kats—22 men and 3 women—described in a Washington Post report of February 22nd as “self-styled artists, poets and actors.” The article specifically noted that several arrested patrons “worked for the [federal] government by day and masqueraded as Bohemians by night.”

The club presumably closed at some time prior to 1928 when Throckmorton relocated to Hoboken, New Jersey. During this same period, Throckmorton divorced his first wife (and model) Katherine Mullen and subsequently married screen actress Juliet Brenon, the niece of Irish-American motion picture auteur Herbert Brenon who directed the first cinematic adaptation of The Great Gatsby (1926). Throckmorton would later become one of the most prolific scenic designers for Broadway plays, and his Greenwich Village apartment that he shared with Juliet Brenon would become an after-hours salon for thespians, artists, and intellectuals such as Noël Coward, Norman Bel Geddes, Eugene O’Neill and E.E. Cummings. Their politically leftward salon would notably raise funds for the Republican faction during the Spanish Civil War.

Cleon Throckmorton, Katherine Mullen, and others chat over coffee and cigarettes.

Cleon Throckmorton and his wife Katherine Mullen relaxing with a friend

A model, presumably Katherine Mullen, poses for Cleon.

A waiter ascends a ladder to serve patrons in the club’s tree-house.

Cleon, Katherine, and others arrive at the back-alley entrance of The Kat.

Another angle of guests arriving at the entrance of The Krazy Kat Klub.