Cool Vintage Photos of Women Posing With Their Motorcycles

The history of the motorcycle begins in the second half of the 19th century. Motorcycles are descended from the “safety bicycle,” a bicycle with front and rear wheels of the same size and a pedal crank mechanism to drive the rear wheel.

Women posing with their motorcycles

Despite some early landmarks in its development, the motorcycle lacks a rigid pedigree that can be traced back to a single idea or machine. Instead, the idea seems to have occurred to numerous engineers and inventors around Europe at around the same time.

At the turn of the 20th century the first major mass-production firms emerged. During this period, experimentation and innovation were driven by the popular new sport of motorcycle racing, with its powerful incentive to produce tough, fast, reliable machines. These enhancements quickly found their way to the public’s machines.

These cool photos were found by Vintage Cars & People that show women posing with their motorcycles in the past.

A young lady in a fur-trimmed coat posing in the saddle of an NSU 501 T Combination in an autumnal forest. The bike is registered in the city of Berlin, November 1929.

A cheerful young lady posing in the saddle of an ancient motorcycle in front of a double-leaf door. The words "1 January 1930" are handwritten on reverse. The bike is registered in the city of Berlin.

A fashionable lady posing in the saddle of an Ariel Model F 500 on a dirt road in the countryside. The bike is registered in the city of Vienna, circa 1930s.

A stylish lady in a female suit posing with a sidecar motorcycle in the countryside, circa 1930s.

Two cheerful ladies posing with a Opel Motoclub 500 combination on a dirt road in the countryside. The bike is registered in the administrative region of Düsseldorf, circa 1930s.

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20 Sweet Photos Captured Springtime in Brooklyn in 1949

This is Brooklyn just four years after the end of World War II.

In 1949, when Brooklyn on the north side of Prospect Park was still a collection of working-class and middle-income neighborhoods and urban decay had yet to take hold, a LIFE photographer went out and took some photos.

In a LIFE spread titled “Spring Comes to Brooklyn,” Ralph Morse captured street life in the neighborhoods located in the shadow of the Williamsburgh Bank Tower. The images look like simple snapshots. Backyard gardens are planted. Kids play in the (strangely car-free) streets. Teenagers hang around corner candy stores and newsstands...

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Speedy Motor-Cycle Car Runs on Two Wheels, 1939

Whether it’s a car or a motor cycle would be hard to say, but the inventor of this novel vehicle declares it has the advantages of both.

In motion, it rides upon two wheels, guided by a steering wheel. The driver experiences a pleasant swaying sensation as the machine tips like a plane or motor cycle for the turns. When the driver stops, a pedal lowers a pair of small auxiliary wheels at the sides for support.

The photograph shows the odd gas buggy being driven by a mechanic in a tryout run at Miami, Fla. Another model has a seat for a passenger mounted behind that of the driver.

Europe in 1980 Through Beautiful Photos

The Polish trade union, Solidarność, and its leader Lech Walesa, become household names across Europe and the world following the Gdansk shipyard strikes in the summer of 1980. In 1981, Greece becomes the 10th member of the EU and Spain and Portugal follow five years later.

In 1986 the Single European Act is signed. This is a treaty which provides the basis for a vast six-year program aimed at sorting out the problems with the free-flow of trade across EU borders and thus creates the ‘Single Market’.

There is major political upheaval when, on 9 November 1989, the Berlin Wall is pulled down and the border between East and West Germany is opened for the first time in 28 years, this leads to the reunification of Germany when both East and West Germany are united in October 1990.

These beautiful photos were taken by wvbees when he spent almost three months using Eurail and Britrail passes to traipse all over Europe in 1980.

Germany. Siegestor, Munich

Germany. Siegestor, Munich

Austria. Vienna

Boat to Sweden

Denmark. Copenhagen

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Portraits of Cora Korsett With Tiny Waist in the 1970s

Cora Korsett was a German BDSM dominatrix and body modification fetish model. Not much is known about her, apart from she was well over 6 ft tall and she appeared in fetish magazines in the 1960s and ’70s.

Here’s her own words from an interview:

“There’s the question always asked again what degree of waist reduction through allerengste corseting is possible. Well, that depends primarily on the physique with the laced person. For example, I have a rather long and narrow upper body in the normal shoulder width and hip width handsome. The distance between my hip bones and the lower ribs is relatively large, which provides more room for the narrowing of the intervening soft portion of the waist, and secondly my ribs can be compressed much closer than in a person with a broad chest.

“It is also clear from this my proportions also purely visual impression of a much more closely laced wasp waist, than someone with a short torso and stocky, relatively narrow hips and shoulders. However, the side considered also play breasts and butt a significant role, but because you can help out a lot to bounce up, swaying filling, between which a closest-corseted waist then so contrasting, thin, the corset fan excitement and the physician — at least — appear surprising.”

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40 Incredible Colorized Photos Show What Life of the U.S. Looked Like in the 1930s and ’40s

The Great Depression was the worst economic downturn in the history of the industrialized world, lasting from 1929 to 1939. It began after the stock market crash of October 29, 1929, the “Black Tuesday”, which sent Wall Street into a panic and wiped out millions of investors.

Life of the U.S. in the 1930s and 1940s

Over the next several years, consumer spending and investment dropped, causing steep declines in industrial output and employment as failing companies laid off workers. By 1933, when the Great Depression reached its lowest point, some 15 million Americans were unemployed and nearly half the country’s banks had failed.

The end to the Great Depression came about in 1941 with America’s entry into World War II. America sided with Britain, France and the Soviet Union against Germany, Italy, and Japan. The loss of lives in this war was staggering.

The European part of the war ended with Germany’s surrender in May 1945. Japan surrendered in September 1945, after the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

These incredible vintage photos were colorized by Lamont Cranston that revived life of the U.S. in the 1930s and 1940s.

Street kids at play, Georgetown, Washington D.C., Summer 1935

Street smart, Washington, D.C., 1935

Cigar store owner and his Indian, Manchester, New Hampshire, October 1936

Son of a woodcutter, Eden Mills, Vermont, August 1936

Steelworker listening to an unseen union organizer, Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, July 1936

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Ella Fitzgerald Photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1940

Carl Van Vechten (June 17, 1880 – December 21, 1964) was an American writer and artistic photographer who was a patron of the Harlem Renaissance and the literary executor of Gertrude Stein. He gained fame as a writer, and notoriety as well, for his 1926 novel Nigger Heaven. In his later years, he took up photography and took many portraits of notable people.

In the early 1930s, Miguel Covarrubias introduced Van Vechten to the 35mm Leica camera. He began photographing his large circle of friends and acquaintances. His earlier career as a writer and his wife’s experience as an actress provided him with access to both fledgling artists and the established cultural figures of the time. Some of his subjects from this period include F. Scott Fitzgerald, Langston Hughes, Alfred A. Knopf, Bessie Smith, and Gertrude Stein.

Van Vechten did his own darkroom work, but frequently used an assistant to help set up lights for the portrait sittings. His portraits are frequently busts or half-length poses, in front of bold backdrops, as shown in these portraits of American jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald which he photographed in his studio in 1940.

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