Category: 1900s

Pin-Up Precursor

LIFE 9/55

“Gibson girl” Evelyn Nesbit poses in 1955 with the 1902 portrait drawn of her by Charles Gibson, reflecting the standard of female attractiveness at the cusp of the 20th century. This included voluptuous curves and, as Judy Garland sang in The Trolley Song, “hair piled high upon my head.”

At 16, she already poses formidably for this portrait by Gertrude Kasebier in 1902, commissioned by architect Stanford White, who was sleeping with the teen at the time.

PhotoHistorica

Nesbit had a storied past, including a love triangle with Harry Thaw, railroad heir and coke addict, who later murdered White in a fit of jealousy, much too complicated for this small blog. We can, however, share the beauty of youth that is timeless.

Smithsonian JN2016-00673

Licking Public Ice Blocks Used To Be A Thing

shorpy

July 6, 1911. It’s hot. It’s humid. It’s New York. Hygiene is sorely lacking. There’s no chilled Coke. No frosty A&W. No Slurpees available. So why don’t we stick some blocks of ice on the hot asphalt of a dirty city street and invite some unvaccinated urchins to come lick it? It’s not like it’s a bat or anything.

Life Before Sonicare

Living Lens by Newhouse

Over 100 years ago, these Jewish children practiced oral hygiene with a standard “Toothbrush Drill,” popular at New York public schools. Pretty sure these kids didn’t have gingivitis.

Good oral hygiene was also important for these young women during singing class at Jewish People’s School in Otwock, Poland in the 1920s. Note that every single one wore her hair bobbed.

If those girls played their cards right, they might end up with nice Jewish boys, like the ones below at Yeshiva College in NYC, where students were able to “harmoniously combine the best of modern culture with the learning and the spirit of Torah.”

Today let’s pause and be grateful that we have the freedom to worship in our country without being persecuted.

giphy.com

 

 

Hot British Mechanic Rocks Double Safety Pins

It’s 1911 in Antartica, and British engineer Bernard C. Day returns to base camp after driving one of the first motor sledges used in Polar exploration, during the South Polar Expedition aka the Terra Nova Expedition aka the British Antarctic Expedition led by Robert Falcon Scott (photo by Herbert G. Ponting from Then & Now). While Scott perished the following year, trying to be the first to reach the South Pole, Day lived till 1934.

What do you think? Hat or no hat?

https://returntoantarctica.com/

Put Me In, Coach

Illustrated History of the US

Just look at the grin on the fellow biting his lower lip, as President Warren G (the president, not the rapper) Harding throw out the baseball to start the April 1922 season. Guess that didn’t happen this year.

The originator of the tradition was the portly and oft-ridiculed President William Howard Taft, seen throwing out the  first pitch at a Washington Senators game in 1910. (AP Photo, File)

Good form, sir!

But before you go, let’s make sure that you have one bit of trivia in that noggin of yours about our 27th president, that has nothing to do with his size (which seems to have vacillated from 243 in college to a high of 330 and then down again).  His father was a former US Attorney General, and he himself was named by President Warren Harding (above) to the Supreme Court in 1921. Yes, he was the Chief Justice of the US. And no, he never got stuck inside a bathtub.

 

Poop Puts Out Fire 100 Years Ago

University of Houston

It’s 1920 in Houston, Texas. These firefighters from Station No. 7 stand in front of their sweet steam truck with the big A wheels. Mike Lathrop is to the left, in suspenders, Magerson Smith (Magerson is a cool name, no?) is in overalls to the right, and a man known only as Poop is in the middle. I’m guessing this was before hot firefighter calendars were popular.

Celery Tonic Won’t Fix This

Hometown USA, Barnes & Noble

Jackson, Mississippi, March 1914

Photographer Albert Fred Daniel (yes, that is three first names) captured Capitol Street as it  disappear underwater from the spilled banks of Town Creek, literally making the town a creek.

Oscar Lamb Sales took a huge hit, as well as the Heidelburg building movie house (ironically showing an epic about the Titanic), which reported its organ and all its seats total losses. The boardinghouse proprietor below tries to keep track of several of the boys who found wading in the cesspool an absolute delight.

How Lovely Are Thy Branches

Jan 1917 National Geographic
Jan 1917 National Geographic

Over 100 years ago, a “motor-driven vehicle” and its owners somehow made it up to the top of this felled sequoia in the Sequoia National Park, presumably without 4 wheel drive.

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