Amazing Daguerreotypes Taken by Augustus Washington in the Mid-19th Century

Born 1920 in Trenton, New Jersey as a free person of color and immigrated to Liberia in 1852, American photographer and daguerreotypist Augustus Washington is one of the few African-American daguerreotypists whose career has been documented.

Daguerreotypes taken by Augustus Washington from the 1840s and 1850s

Washington moved to Hartford, Connecticut, teaching black students at a local school and opening a daguerrean studio in 1846. He made the decision in 1852 to leave his home in Hartford, Connecticut, to emigrate to Liberia, and opened a daguerrean studio in the Liberian capital Monrovia in 1853 and also traveled to the neighboring countries Sierra Leone, Gambia and Senegal.

His daguerreotypes came at a vital moment for the Liberian nation as they were a visible way to document the progress of the colony not only for the Liberians but also to create an image of the colony for Western audiences. Washington’s Liberian portraits are of meticulously-posed elite members of the Liberian colony and focus on showing off the grooming, clothing, decoration and self-possession of his upper- and middle-class subjects.

In addition to photographing members of the Liberian upper and middle classes, Washington also photographed many of Liberia's political leaders. These include likenesses of President Stephen Allen Benson, Vice President Beverly Page Yates, Senate chaplain Reverend Philip Coker, a number of senators, as well as the secretary, clerk, and sergeant-at-arms of the Senate.

Washington later gave up his photographic work and became a sugarcane grower on the shores of the Saint Paul River. In 1858, he began a political career, serving in both the House of Representatives and the Senate of Liberia. He served as Speaker of the House of Representatives from 1865 to 1869. He died in Monrovia in 1875.

Take a look at these amazing daguerreotypes to see his work from the 1840s and 1850s.

John Brown, 1846-47. (Photo by Augustus Washington)

Chauncy H. Hicks, Liberian colonist, circa 1858. (Photo by Augustus Washington)

James B. Yates, Liberian politician, 1958. (Photo by Augustus Washington)

Chancy Brown, Sargeant at Arms of the Liberian Senate, 1860. (Photo by Augustus Washington)

Edward James Roye, who owned a successful shipping business. (Photo by Augustus Washington)

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30 Photos Show the Inside of Offices in the 1970s and ’80s

The office has transformed dramatically since the 1970s: in layout, in culture and in technology. It was a decade that saw the worker become more individualistic, with office design becoming more ergonomic and also getting some ‘pop’ in color. The computer was at the start of its journey that would change everything, and therefore so were the working processes.

These photographs from the Melbourne Harbour Trust series in the Public Record Office Victoria collection reveal some of the office spaces and work products being used by Port of Melbourne Authority (PMA) employees at their Market Street offices in the 1970s and ’80s and World Trade Centre location from 1983.

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Fabulous Images Documenting the Phenomenon of Voguing in New York’s House Ballrooms in the Late 1980s and Early 90s

Voguing came out of the extraordinary house ballroom scene that emerged in Harlem, New York in the 1980s where men competed against one another for their dancing skills, the realness of their drag and their ability to walk on a catwalk runway like a model. These wild years of voguing and the house ballroom scene are vividly captured at its height in hundreds of amazing, previously unpublished photographs.

In 1989, Malcolm McLaren had his only number one hit with a single called “Deep in Vogue.” Early the next year, Madonna had one of the biggest hits of her career, with the single “Vogue,” and when Jennie Livingston’s film Paris Is Burning arrived in cinemas the same year, winning the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, the mainstream got hip to New York City’s extraordinary ball culture, from which the film and McLaren and Madonna’s songs had arisen. Paris Is Burning documented a gay ballroom scene that emerged in Harlem in the mid-1980s, which drew African American and Latino gay and transgender communities to compete against one another for their dancing skills, the verisimilitude of their drag and their ability to walk on the runway.

French-born photographer and documentarist Chantal Regnault began documenting the house ballroom and voguing scene in the late 1980s, capturing it at its height between 1989-1992.

“1989-1992 was the peak of creativity and popularity for the ballroom scene, and when the mainstream attention faded away, the original black and Latino gay ballroom culture didn’t die. On the contrary, it became a national phenomena as Houses started to have “chapters” all over the big cities of the United States. But I was not a direct witness to most of it as I moved to Haiti in 1993.”

Chantal Regnault was born in France. She left Paris after the 1968 uprisings and lived in New York for the next 15 years. At the end of the 1980s she became immersed in Harlem’s voguing scene. Also around this time, Regnault developed an interest in Haitian voodoo culture and began to divide her time between Haiti and New York. Her widely published photographs have appeared in major magazines and newspapers, including Vanity Fair and the New York Times.

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Guard Prevents Lipstick Smears, 1934

A tiny device which slips between the lips effectively prevents lipstick from making smears while actresses try on gowns, 1934.

These lip protectors keep lipstick smears off costly gowns when actresses change costumes.

Studio wardrobe departments are finding the guard especially valuable in protecting expensive costumes. The device is pressed out of heavy paper.

DAF-Domburg Diesel Bus With Slide Out Motor for Ease of Maintenance

1949 innovation where the motor can be “taken out” of the bus, literally, so it can be easily serviced, repaired, and even removed from the subframe altogether.

DAF Trucks is a Dutch truck manufacturing company and a division of Paccar. Its headquarters and main plant are in Eindhoven. Cabs and axle assemblies are produced at its Westerlo plant in Belgium. Some of the truck models sold with the DAF brand are designed and built by Leyland Trucks at its Leyland plant in England.

In 1928, Hubert “Hub” van Doorne founded the company as Commanditaire Vennootschap Hub van Doorne’s Machinefabriek. His co-founder and investor was A. H. Huenges, managing director of a brewery. In 1932, the company, by then run by Hub and his brother, Wim van Doorne, changed its name to Van Doorne’s Aanhangwagen Fabriek (Van Doorne’s Trailer Factory), abbreviated to DAF. Huenges left the company in 1936 and the DAF company was then completely in the hands of the van Doorne brothers.

After World War II luxury cars and trucks were very scarce. This meant a big opportunity for DAF. In 1949, the company started making trucks, trailers and buses, changing its name to Van Doorne’s Automobiel Fabriek (Van Doorne’s Automobile Factory). The first lorry model was the DAF A30.

Through the 1950s, DAF was a major supplier to the re-equipping of the Dutch Army’s softskin vehicles. In the end of 1954, Hub van Doorne had the idea to use belt drive, just like many of the machines in the factory that were belt-driven, to drive road vehicles. In 1955, DAF produced its first drafts of a car belt drive system. Over the next few years, the design was developed and refined.

40 Vintage Photos of ’60s Young Women in Their Dresses and Skirts

The type of dress worn by women, like most everything else in the sixties, changed drastically from the beginning of the decade to the end. Although that is certainly more true of younger women than the older set, who were perfectly fine with their late 50s-era dresses and long skirts.

However, many women were preferring skirts over dresses because they could mix and match their outfits a lot better. For many young women, the shorter the skirt, the better.

These vintage photos captured beautiful young women wearing dresses and skirts in the 1960s.

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Handsome Portrait Photos of Montgomery Clift During the Filming of ‘Red River’ (1948)

Red River is a 1948 American Western film, directed and produced by Howard Hawks and starring John Wayne and Montgomery Clift. It gives a fictional account of the first cattle drive from Texas to Kansas along the Chisholm Trail. The dramatic tension stems from a growing feud over the management of the drive, between the Texas rancher who initiated it (Wayne) and his adopted adult son (Clift).

The film’s supporting cast features Walter Brennan, Joanne Dru, Coleen Gray, Harry Carey, John Ireland, Hank Worden, Noah Beery Jr., Harry Carey Jr. and Paul Fix. Borden Chase and Charles Schnee wrote the screenplay, based on Chase’s original story (which was first serialized in The Saturday Evening Post in 1946 as “Blazing Guns on the Chisholm Trail”).

Upon its release, Red River was both a commercial and a critical success and was nominated for two Academy Awards. In 1990, Red River was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” Red River was selected by the American Film Institute as the 5th greatest Western of all time in the AFI’s 10 Top 10 list in 2008.

Take a look at these vintage photos to see handsome portraits of a young Montgomery Clift during the filming of Red River in 1948.

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