I love 1930s dresses–modest but visually appealing, in all prints and colors (though you’ll have to use your imagination with these sepia pic). The draping and sleeves are so soft and feminine, just the way I prefer my dresses! So snazzy from their hats down to their shoes.
The left three ladies don’t seem too thrilled with the process, but the right three appear happy as clams to have their picture taken. And what’s the man carrying in the background? Milk?
I’ve never seen a pair of glasses with only one lens tinted. I cannot fathom why he would wear such a pair, unless he was hiding some horrible disfigurement and, not wanting to be called “pirate” instead of “pappaw,” forewent the eye patch. Qui sait? That, however, is not my only question. What appears to be one slender billy goat’s gruff of a beard, upon further examination looks more like exhaled cigar smoke. But how could it be traveling one way down his chin and then circling back up past his hat? Even the granddaughter looks perplexed.
I like how this yearbook just cuts to the chase: Pretty Girls. So there. It’s not open for discussion. And Sugie Smulcher signed her name for emphasis. Say that aloud. Sugie Smulcher. Rolls right off the tongue.
Other yearbooks try to be creative with their beauty queen section, like this classy illustration preceding the portraits.
Some editors refer to them as queens.
Others refer to them as “sweethearts.”
I doubt this girl’s destiny included being a farmer’s wife, but she took the title of FFA (Future Farmers of America) sweetheart. If she’s not a vision in lace, I don’t know what is.
“Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute.”–Albert Einstein
Now that’s science!
I saw this today on Traces of Texas, and it was too cool not to share.
In 1915, trendsetter and celebrated ballroom dancer Irene Castle debuted her Castle Bob, but it would not be until the next decade that the hairstyle began to catch on. By 1930, college campuses were filled with bobbed young independent women. It was all the rage. Curly or straight, blonde or brunette, it didn’t matter. Locks of Love would have had a field day.
It was quite the departure from the long, high-maintenance tresses of the early twentieth-century Gibson Girl.
And everyone was doing it. Well, almost everyone.
In a 1927 magazine interview, Mary Pickford, one of silent film’s most famous actresses, explained: I think I should never be forgiven by my mother, my husband, or my maid if I should commit the indiscretion of cutting my hair. The last in particular seems to take a great personal pride in its length and texture, and her horror-stricken face whenever I mention the possibility of cutting it makes me pause and consider. Perhaps I have a little sentimental feeling for it myself. I have had my curls quite a while now and have become somewhat attached to them. Besides, there is no use denying the fact, no matter how much I should like to do so, that I am not a radical. (source:http://historymatters.gmu.edu/)
A radical.
Mary Garden, a famous opera singer at the time, however, was very much a radical, as evidenced by her testimony. She equated bobbing of hair to the casting of shackles.
Bobbed hair is a state of mind and not merely a new manner of dressing my head. It typifies growth, alertness, up-to-dateness, and is part of the expression of the élan vital! [spirit] It is not just a fad of the moment, either like mah jong or cross-word puzzles. At least I don’t think it is. I consider getting rid of our long hair one of the many little shackles that women have cast aside in their passage to freedom. Whatever helps their emancipation, however small it may seen, is well worth while.
Bobbing the hair is one of those things that show us whether or not we are abreast of the age in which we find ourselves. For instance, can you imagine any woman with a vivid consciousness of being alive, walking along the street in 1927 with skirts trailing on the ground, wearing elastic-side shoes, a shawl, and also a mid-Victorian bonnet? If you saw such a sight you would instantly put her down as one who had ceased to grow, as one who was passé [out of style] and very far from being an up-to-date woman…
I do my best to be constantly on the alert and up to the moment. On my toes, as the boys say. I could no more imaging myself wearing a long, trailing skirt in 1927 when all the world was wearing short skirts than I could wear long, trailing tresses when all the world (or nearly all of it) had wisely come to the conclusion that bobbed hair was more youthful, more chic, and, if I may say so, much more sanitary.
Keep in mind that Ms. Garden was already in her FIFTIES when she made these comments. But most college-age gals agreed. Not a one of these sorority girls wore long hair. Everyone had hopped aboard the peer pressure bandwagon. Whether Jews…
…or Gentiles.
The yearbook editors had nothing but kind words for the bobbed Miss Jackson, praising her for her “naturalness.”
Of course, naturalness doesn’t win any crowns. Just ask Honey Boo Boo. A little dazzle, a little pizzazz, a little sizzle–pretty much any word with double z’s–would bring the boys calling like cats to shiny objects. Women like these Bluebonnet Belles:
It seems no girls were immune to the bobbing pressure, even ones who had so staunchly been against it. Who wants to be left behind in the fads of the past? Mary Pickford herself had conceded in the aforementioned article, “It is quite likely that some day in frenzied haste, casting all caution to the winds, forgetting fans and family, I shall go to a coiffeur and come out a shorn lamb to join the great army of the bobbed.”
And shorn lamb she was. Mary cut her famous ringlets a year after that interview, soon after her mother died. So famous were her curls, that she even auctioned one for $15,000!
What do you think? Does she look better to you? Should we give in to peer pressure in the name of staying modern? Or should we stay stuck in the past, never evolving?
Yet another great shot from https://www.facebook.com/TracesofTexas today, taken by Russell Lee.
Don’t know who these folks are or where this was taken, but it looks to be the 1930s, according to the dresses and hairstyles. I like the ribbons in the girls’ hair, and the restless boys who can’t sit still.
I especially fancy this dress!
But I do wonder why this fella was left holding the baby.
Sometimes trees are the enemy.
The ladies of DPS knew how to live large near the tail end of The Great Depression. And boy howdy, could they tilt a hat just so!
As the war got into full swing, women assumed roles formerly filled by men, and literally got their hands dirty.
But women with administrative duties were not left idle; check out the STACKS of driver license applications behind Cicely and Mrs. Miller.
After the war ended, applications continued to pour in.
Meanwhile, lucky teens were trying their hands at the new Aetna Steerometer, which simulated driving conditions.
Student drivers got to take a spin in the snazzy Studebaker training car. Hold on to your boater straw hats, gents! Maybe they’re going to pick up the fourth member of their barbershop quartet?
As the years rolled by, DPS workers changed with the times, as seen by the lovely hairdos of Ms. Davis and Ms. Deeds, bookending a stern bespectacled Gene Kelly.
But secretary Tom was not about to be upstaged.
She knew how to stay abreast of current trends.
Some women were forced to wear uniforms, so they had to assert their individuality with enormous glasses. Three of these people are actually women.
But let’s go out on a high note, with the cheery Loveboat-cruise director smile of Ms. Stade and the blonde wings of love about to give Ms. Steele lift-off into space.
And with that, we close the chapter on DPS. Remember that it’s the end of May, if you’re inspection sticker is almost due. You wouldn’t want to get ticketed.
Today’s post is Part II in the ongoing bliss that is discovering the Dept of Public Safety’s pictorial heritage. Pictured above is a badass Texas Ranger in an armored vehicle. As I lack a penis, I have no desire to commandeer said vehicle or even go near it. I will speak for most ladies who have no desire to appropriate or operate any sort of tankylooking thing. But those of you who do might want to take a little spin in it.
Police officers have a noble history of enforcing the law, which often means sucking the fun out of your good times. I would have let this guy go, since his car is so boss, but they have quotas to fill.
And don’t try to outrun them; they will go all Ponch and Jon on your bippy.
The Texas Rangers are part of a major division within the Texas DPS, who investigate serious crimes. They also will suck the wind out of a criminal’s sails. Cross the border to nasty swampland-subpar-highway-system Louisiana if you want to play craps; there’s no gambling in Texas.
And weed is still illegal, too–no matter what the dreadheaded, tiedyed-shirt-wearing potheads would have you believe. I don’t have glaucoma nor a criminal history, so I don’t get up close with Mary Jane, but I didn’t think it looked so much like a Charlie Brown Christmas tree.
And don’t think they’ll let you off with a warning. This Amish guy just galloped in from Pennsylvania, and he is exhausted, so he won’t think twice about putting a bullet in your gut. And he’s not the only one.
When Sergeant Guthrie smells something fishy, it is on. It is SO on.
And Sergeant Hall? Some say he’s certifiably insane, a bonafide 5150. I heard he picks possums off the highway, and eats them snout and all. Don’t sass him. He may take you to a Mexican prison if he’s feeling ornery. And that’s just for jaywalking.
And don’t let Officer Lowery fool you. Word on the street is he used to be the lethal injectioner at Huntsville. He thought sterilizing needles was a waste of time. So do I, for that matter.
Now look, they’re not all gruff. Officers Turner & Powell run the night shift, so that might be the perfect time to rob a 7-11. Just saying.
But you won’t run forever. Justice will have its day. They will see to it. Once information is sent from the transceiver, all hope is gone.
And trust me, you do NOT want them sicking Investigator Padgett on your ass. He’s a superhero, and I don’t mean his demon eyes. His power is oft compared to that of Spiderman, only his wide lapel shoots out disco balls filled with elephant tranquilizer. You don’t want to wake up from that sleep, ripe for interrogation.
Am I right or Amarillo?
(All of the above is purely for humorous purposes and in no way meant to disrespect any officer of the law. So please don’t sic Padgett on me…)
I Don't Get It 