30 Gorgeous Photos of Eleonora Rossi Drago in the 1950s and ’60s

Born 1925 as Palmira Omiccioli in Genoa, Italian actress Eleonora Rossi Drago moved to Rome, and had the luck to be cast in Persiane Chiuse (Closed Shutters, 1951), a melodrama about prostitution. The direction was taken over by Comencini, and after the film was a success, he cast her in the leading role of his next film La Tratta delle Bianche (The White Slave Trade, 1953), another melodrama.

Of all those who won fame as sex goddesses of the Italian cinema in the 1950s, Drago was the classiest. Though she had no training as an actor and came from a humble background, she was chosen for dramatic roles by some of the most distinguished directors of the day, including Luigi Comencini, Giuseppe De Santis, Michelangelo Antonioni and Valerio Zurlini. In 1955 she won critical praise for her performance on the stage as Helena in Luchino Visconti’s production of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya.

Drago had the leading role in Le amiche (1955). She appeared in Un maledetto imbroglio (1959). In 1960, for her performance in Estate violenta, she won the best actress prize of the Mar del Plata Film Festival and the Nastro d’argento. In 1964, she appeared in La Cittadella.

Drago died in 2007 in Palermo, Sicily at the age of 82. Take a look at these gorgeous photos to see the beauty of Eleonora Rossi Drago in the 1950s and 1960s.

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Liverpool Cock Tugs

There was a period of time when smaller boats were used by ships, these were called cocks, or cockboats, and the people in charge of them were called coxswains, which is now a term used in rowing. Screw towing is moving ships with tugs and lighterage is when you transfer cargo from a larger ship to a smaller one.

Cock Tugs –– Liverpool Screw Towing & Lighterage Co. –– 28 Brunswick St. Liverpool, 1928.

The River Mersey has seen a large number of tugs from varying fleets in operation – the days of seeing tugs from Alexandra Towing, Liverpool Screw Towing (the Cock tugs), Rea Towing, Lamey, Furness Withy and others are long gone.

Life in Germany in the Late 1930s Through Wonderful Agfacolor Slides

Agfacolor was the name of a series of color film products made by Agfa of Germany. The first Agfacolor, introduced in 1932, was a film-based version of their Agfa-Farbenplatte (Agfa color plate), a “screen plate” product similar to the French Autochrome.

In late 1936, Agfa introduced Agfacolor Neu (New Agfacolor), a pioneering color film of the general type still in use today. The new Agfacolor was originally a reversal film used for making “slides”, home movies and short documentaries. By 1939, it had also been adapted into a negative film and a print film for use by the German motion picture industry.

After World War II, the Agfacolor brand was applied to several varieties of color negative film for still photography, in which the negatives were used to make color prints on paper. The reversal film was then marketed as Agfachrome. These films use Color Developing Agent 1 in their color developer.

Here is a set of rare Agfacolor slides from daves_archive_1 that shows wonderful life in 1939. These slides were mostly taken in Tenby, a town in Wales.

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The Extraordinary of James Craig Annan Photography From the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries

James Craig Annan (1864–1946) was a pioneering Scottish-born photographer and Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society.

The son of the early documentary photographer Thomas Annan (who published Photographs of the Old Closes and Streets of Glasgow in 1878), J. Craig Annan apprenticed in his father’s photographic printing business. The firm specialized in the carbon process, and after James learned photogravure directly from its Austrian inventor in 1883, the firm became expert in that process as well.

When his father died in 1887, Annan took over and continued to successfully run the family business, but about 1890 he grew restless and began to follow his own, artistic interests in the medium. He was particularly drawn to photography’s ability to render mood and atmosphere, as in this photograph. In it, Annan has employed his expertise in photogravure to subdue the edges of the figures in the foreground and unify the tonal character of the entire image in order to effect a stronger and more unified composition. The dynamic disintegration of form verging on the abstract is reminiscent of the paintings of James MacNeill Whistler-one of Annan’s favorite artists.

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Women At War: Beautiful Kodachrome Photos of Female Engineers at Aircraft Factories in World War II

Shortly after the United States entered World War II in 1941, the nation quickly mobilized for war and nearly all able-bodied men under the age of forty-five volunteered or were drafted into the armed forces. This left a major gap in the nation’s industrial workforce, just at the time when increased war production was desperately needed. 

In order to fill these ranks, the government began to promote the hiring of women as industrial workers. Amid initial opposition to the idea, the Office of War Information (OWI) was created to produce promotional posters, advertisements, and news stories to gain much-needed support for these and other home-front war efforts. In 1942, Alfred T. Palmer, the official photographer of the OWI, began visiting aviation production plants across the country and photographing their female workers.

Women at work on bomber, Douglas Aircraft Company, Long Beach, Calif.

Palmer’s World War II factory photographs of women aviation workers were created for the OWI between 1942 and 1943, and they comprise some of his best and most well-known work. These images depict their subjects as they were; focused and determined to play an important part in the production of military aircraft to win the war in the air. They also serve to document the rapid technological advancement of war-time aviation and aircraft production, which reached an astounding total of 324,750 aircraft.

Take a look at the female workers working at the aviation production plants across the country in World War II through these 30 beautiful Kodachrome pictures:

A girl riveting machine operator at the Douglas Aircraft Company plant joins sections of wing ribs to reinforce the inner wing assemblies of B-17F heavy bombers, Long Beach, Calif. Better known as the "Flying Fortress," the B-17F bomber is a later model of the B-17, which distinguished itself in action in the south Pacific, over Germany and elsewhere. It is a long range, high altitude, heavy bomber, with a crew of seven to nine men -- and with armament sufficient to defend itself on daylight missions

Part of the cowling for one of the motors for a B-25 bomber is assembled in the engine department of North American [Aviation, Inc.]'s Inglewood, Calif., plant

American mothers and sisters, like these women at the Douglas Aircraft Company, give important help in producing dependable planes for their men at the front, Long Beach, Calif. Most important of the many types of aircraft made at this plant are the B-17F ("Flying Fortress") heavy bomber, the A-20 ("Havoc") assault bomber and the C-47 heavy transport plane for the carrying of troops and cargo

Women at work on C-47 Douglas cargo transport, Douglas Aircraft Company, Long Beach, Calif.

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Singapore in the Late 1970s Through Fascinating Photos

With the economic boom of the late 1960s and 1970s, new jobs were created in the private sector. The government provision of subsidized housing, education, health services and public transportation generated new jobs in the public sector. The Central Provident Fund, the country’s comprehensive social security scheme sustained by compulsory contributions by employer and employee, provided the necessary capital for government projects and financial security for the country’s workers in their old age.

By late 1970s, the government changed its strategic focus to skill and technology-intensive, high value-added industries and away from labor-intensive manufacturing. In particular, information technology was given priority for expansion and Singapore became the world’s largest producer of disk drives and disk drive parts in 1989.

These fascinating photos from genibee captured street scenes of Singapore in the late 1970s.

Hill Street Central Fire Station, Singapore, 1978

Hill Street Central Fire Station, Singapore, 1978

Hill Street Central Fire Station, Singapore, 1978

Hill Street Central Fire Station, Singapore, 1978

Hill Street, Singapore, 1978

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Swimming Taught by Telephone, 1934

By means of a special headset and transmitter, a San Francisco coach is teaching swimming via telephone in 1934. The instructor stands on the edge of the pool and relays advice to his pupil in the water.

The inventor of the swimaphone tests his apparatus before sending his fair pupil out into deep water for instruction.

Specially prepared, waterproof transmitters and receivers, plus a length of telephone wire, comprise the set which operates on a charge of three volts. The advantage of the device is that faults are corrected while the swimmer is in action.