Fascinating Vintage Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Tri-Taylor Neighborhood, Chicago in the 1970s

These photographs were taken by Lou Fourcher, a University of Chicago Ph.D. psychology student, for a project sponsored by University of Illinois-Chicago’s Valley Project in the early seventies.  They were later discovered and scanned from the original film prints by Mike Fourcher, Lou’s son.

“He was a fish out of water in this neighborhood.” Mike talked about his father, who was only 28 years old when he took these pictures of the Tri-Taylor neighborhood. “He told me many times that he got most of the pictures because he managed to talk a local gang leader into walking him around. I think the work he did at the clinic, the Valley Project, was an inspiration for him, since he later went on to run non-profit health centers, like Erie Family Health Center in Humboldt Park and New City Health Center in Englewood.”

Lou’s photography of the area is a valuable look at a specific time and place in Chicago’s history. They offer more than just a glimpse into the part of the city that no longer exists. Check out Mike’s Flickr site for more.

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Before Computer: Vintage Photos of People From the Past With Their Typewriters

A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an inked ribbon selectively against the paper with a type element. At the end of the nineteenth century, the term ‘typewriter’ was also applied to a person who used such a device.

The first commercial typewriters were introduced in 1874, but did not become common in offices until after the mid-1880s. The typewriter quickly became an indispensable tool for practically all writing other than personal handwritten correspondence. It was widely used by professional writers, in offices, business correspondence in private homes, and by students preparing written assignments.

Typewriters were a standard fixture in most offices up to the 1980s. Thereafter, they began to be largely supplanted by personal computers running word processing software. Nevertheless, typewriters remain common in some parts of the world. The QWERTY keyboard layout, developed for typewriters in the 1870s, remains the standard for computer keyboards.

Before computer, here is a set of vintage photos that shows people from the past with their typewriters.

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Black and White Portrait Photos of Goldie Hawn Taken by Joseph Klipple in 1964

Born 1945 in Washington, D.C., Goldie Hawn began taking ballet and tap dance lessons at the age of three and danced in the corps de ballet of the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo production of The Nutcracker in 1955. She made her stage debut in 1964, playing Juliet in a Virginia Shakespeare Festival production of Romeo and Juliet.

By 1964, Hawn ran and taught in a ballet school, having dropped out of American University where she was majoring in drama. In 1964, Hawn made her professional dancing debut in a production of Can-Can at the Texas Pavilion of the New York World's Fair. She began working as a professional dancer a year later and appeared as a go-go dancer in New York City and at the Peppermint Box in New Jersey.

Before becoming a famous actress, these beautiful photos are portraits of American dancer and dance instructor Goldie Hawn taken by Joseph Klipple, Washington D.C. on May 28, 1964.

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Bobby Socks, Female Short Socks That Epitomized Teen Fashion in the 1940s and 1950s

Bobby socks are a style of women’s sock, white, ankle length or collected at the ankle, instead of at full extension up the leg. They were initially popular in the United States in the 1940s through the 1950s, later making a comeback in the 1980s.

By the 1940s teenagers began pairing the shoes with ankle socks, worn folded or slouched depending on the fashion at the time, known as “bobby socks.” The media coined the term “bobby soxers,” a group referring to teenage girls “addicted to adolescent fads and crazes.” 

In addition to being ankle length, bobby socks are also typically ornamented with a layer of lace or other material. The tops of the socks may be designed to fold down to showcase decorative materials, and it is not uncommon to see a bow or similar ornament on the back of the sock. Traditionally, bobby socks are plain white, but patterned and colored versions are available in many regions of the world.

Some schools include bobby socks as a uniform option for their girls. Girls may choose to wear bobby socks to have an opportunity for more personal expression in a school with a strict dress or uniform code, or because the socks are more comfortable to wear. Because of the common use of bobby socks in school uniforms, plain versions of these socks are often readily available from companies which supply school uniforms and accessories, although women with large feet may not be able to fit into uniform socks, as they are designed for girls.

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Shengshan Island, the Abandoned Fishing Village of Houtouwan in China

Wrapped in mist, the village has been slowly swallowed up by great nature. Without any human trace, the vines climb on the melancholy walls and roofs slowly and silently, and decorate the whole village into a green wonderland.

This is Houtouwan, the famous abandoned village of Shengshan Island. Known to the locals simply as wurencun (no person village), it’s been the subject of National Geographic articles and a fair few travelogues written by adventurers drawn to what looks, in pictures at least, to be the Zhoushan Archipelago’s answer to a lost Mayan city.

The story of Houtouwan officially starts with settlement in the 1950s, but doesn’t really begin until the 1980s and ’90s, with China’s fishing boom. By the end of the 20th century, this cluster of houses had spread up and over the steep inclines of the adjacent coves. At its height, there were 3,000 people living here.

From that point, the stories diverge a bit. Some say rampant commercial fishing meant the town couldn’t support itself. That seems unlikely; less than ten minutes away are two bustling ports thriving off one of the world’s largest mussel farms, stretching far into the sea. A couple of the taxi drivers on the island will say it’s because it was just too inconvenient to live there. The path to the village was too steep, and the bay was too small. Whatever the reason, the inhabitants gradually moved to the island’s western villages, to nearby Shengsi island, or to Ningbo and Shanghai, if they could afford it. Many of the families came from Ningbo anyway.

By 2002, Houtouwan was empty.

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35 Fabulous Photos of Danish Beauty Yutte Stensgaard During Her Short Career

Born 1946 in Thisted, Jutland, Danish actress Yutte Stensgaard began her acting career in the film La Ragazza con la pistola (The Girl with the Pistol, 1968). She then played parts in diverse UK TV-series. Her film parts include the Bulldog Drummond film Some Girls Do (1969), played small parts in If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium (1969), Scream and Scream Again (1970) and Doctor In Trouble (1970). She also appeared in the low-budget sci-fi sex comedy Zeta One (1969).

Stensgaard’s most famous role is that of the vampire Carmilla/Mircalla in Hammer’s Lust for a Vampire (1971). The film was the sequel to The Vampire Lovers (1970), which had starred Ingrid Pitt as Mircalla.

Stensgaard auditioned for the part of the Doctor Who companion Jo Grant, alongside third Doctor Jon Pertwee in 1970. Towards the end of her career she appeared in pantomime and the stage-farce Boeing-Boeing (1971). She also appeared on TV as a hostess on the popular game show The Golden Shot hosted by Bob Monkhouse.

Stensgaard left acting in 1972. Her image continues to feature on the covers of numerous book and magazine publications; for instance, Marcus Hearn’s book Hammer Glamour (2009), which contains a chapter on her.

Take a look at these fabulous photos to see the beauty of young Yutte Stensgaard in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

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Folies Bergère Performance, circa 1932

“Le Triomphe des Vamps” at the Paris music hall, Folies Bergère, ca. 1932.

It’s fascinating to see scantily clad black men on stage with scantily clad white women in the 1930s. Was France that much ahead of the U.S. in race relations? Or was it more a matter of less strict concepts of modesty?