Category: 1920s

Ditching Mom’s Swimsuit Look

These fresh-faced ladies of the 1920s modeled the current swimsuit garb of “modish jersey tank suits, curl-revealing caps and high two-tone shoes.” One can hardly imagine lacing up shoes for the beach or how much sand would enter them.

In contrast, the 2/7/55 LIFE compares the bleak, black tank/shorts of the past to the fashionable “sweater-girl bathing suits” of the present, with clinging knit, loud stripes, broad straps, skirts, and sleeves. Plus, they had the luxury of going barefoot.

Either way, the lesson here is to always have a cigarette handy, especially at the beach.

I Fall Into You, And We Keep Growing

WI Brown 1928

An elm tree in Andrew County, Missouri fell smack dab onto a sister tree 25 feet away. Instead of dying, the two continued to grow together. At time of picture in 1928, it was 75 feet tall and quite the climbing tree for youngsters.

We’ve Got The Beets

July 1928, Nat’l Geographic

Last night, we dined at a local Mediterranean restaurant, feasting on shawarma, falafel, mixed makaly, tabouli, and pita bread. They keep a container of cold beet juice next to the lemonade, so I had two full glasses. They said the secret ingredient was orange juice. My husband won’t touch it because he says it tastes like dirt. Evidently, it’s the geosmin, an organic compound that you can smell in the air after a rain shower. Yes, that earthy odor. I love it.

In the 1920s, Nebraska met the growing need for sugar with beets, as cane sugar thrived only in warmer climates. Pictured above is a western Nebraska beet sugar mill, with two young men in the foreground. The pile weighed in at 22,000 tons. While Minnesota is the top state producer of sugar beets, Nebraska ranks 6th and has been at it for over 100 years. In fact, a town built solely to process the yearly tons of beets was named Melbeta, which means “sweet beet” in German.

What about you? How do you feel about beets?

Rib-Tickling, Spine-Splitting Pie

shorpy

I do love pie (even chose it instead of wedding cake), but I must admit I’ve never consumed it whilst donning a bathing suit, as these lasses did on July 31, 1921 in the nation’s capital. Tidal Basin Bathing Beach had opened only three years prior, and then closed four years after this shot.  Seize the moments while you can.

People Who Didn’t Get The Johnson & Johnson Vaccine

Portrait of an Era

The Roaring 20s (which seemed exponentially better than these current less-roaring/more rioting ones) offered these ladies the hedonistic pleasure of mounting a punt on the Thames during the Henley Regatta. To this day, if one is seated in The Stewards’ Enclosure, members must abide by a strict dress code of lounge suits for men and dresses or skirts ( with hemlines below the knee) for women. Culottes are specifically cited as unacceptable. This is a regatta, not a hootenanny! Clearly these gals were less about decorum and more about revelry.

Of Ice And Men

Reminisce: Pics from the Past

Brothers Fred and Amos Vieira cut ice on their farm pond in Jacksonville, Illinois exactly 100 years ago in 1921. One hopes they never fell through the ice in those heavy jackets, but I imagine, as they were the only two of six sons assigned to this chore, that their competence was high. Ice was stored in sawdust (yes, that’s a thing) for later use. Can you imagine dusty ice cubes in your cocktail? I can’t even imagine a frozen river.

Air Planking

Houston Public Library, 1920s

During the Roaring 20s (as opposed to this current 20s, whose moniker remains to be seen, but I vote for Recovering) flying circuses and wing walkers were all the rage. I find it curious that they simply couldn’t paint in smaller font and thereby include all of the letters in TRANSPORT, but no matter. Although, technically, it could abbreviate TRANSPLANT as well. I would not volunteer for an aerial transplant.

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

 

 

Only Godless Heathens Don’t Wear Hats

Houston Metropolitan Research Center

1920 is most remembered as the year women got the vote, and perhaps these very women DID vote that year. However, this was a day of leisure, a pleasant afternoon of watching boats shuttle visitors to and from the San Jacinto battlegrounds in Houston. Most Texans know the battle happened in 1836, the year Texas won its independence from Mexico, in a fight that lasted 18 minutes and wound up with Santa Anna getting his boo-tay handed to him by Sam Houston.

And while this image seems so very long ago, and none of us was alive, let’s remember that John McCain’s mom was already EIGHT years old when this photo was taken, tackling third grade and cursive. Just throwing that out there for some perspective. And she’s STILL alive.

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.

 

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