These images all come from the 1930 University of Texas yearbook. While they reflect some aspects of the culture at the time, you would never know the country was in a depression.
Very little of the yearbook was in color, other than these images. I imagine most students could not afford them at the time, under the circumstances. I know I was never able to afford a university yearbook during my four years.
Here you see a student sweating over his impending exams.
And if you look closely enough at the inside of the yearbook, you can read the date Irene received it!
If I had a household budget, I would totally hold it up in the air like that and really give my armpits a breather. It’s good for the deltoids, too. She is literally balancing the budget. How else would she maintain a 22″ waist?
Among my favorite WWII books that I keep on hand is United We Stand by Richard J. Perry. It’s full of brightly-colored 1940s images, and you know that’s my bag. Unless otherwise noted, all of today’s images come from this book. While I don’t go in for the nudity in many pin-ups, I do appreciate the artistry, skill, and the motive for hanging them–which was to inspire the GIs. (Incidentally, did you know GI stood for “Government Issue”?)
If it were up to me, all pin-ups would keep their clothes on, and wind would not be constantly blowing their skirts up. They might also not look so surprised about the blustery weather. But I admit when I was young, I thought the Vargas girls were just beautiful. I had no idea they served any purpose other than looking pretty.
Upon whichever end of the spectrum you stand, in this world of rampant internet porn and the demise of the iconic Playboy, it’s hard to argue against the fact that pin-up girls made our boys want to stay alive. They helped win the war. Whether it was on the nose or side of the plane……or when they smoked (which was often)…
or on the walls at nightfall…
…these pin-ups reminded our fighting men of home, of their girlfriends, of the home front. Sweet, innocent-looking but scantily clad, hourglass-figured, predominantly wavy-haired young white women. Clean women for dirty thoughts.
I can’t explain it; I’m XX. Women don’t respond to visual stimuli in the manner that men do. We can turn away. We can frankly be bored by it. In fact, I’d wager that if women were doing the fighting, it would be posters of chocolate and wine on the walls. Damn the enemy who takes my freedom to eat dark chocolate pecan delights and sip Riesling! Or maybe the posters would include Matthew McConaughey holding chocolate and wine. But he’d still be wearing pants.
Well, maybe not. In any event, we’d be more realistic about it. We wouldn’t pretend paper boys looked like this. Extra, extra, my clothes are falling off, and I’m in stilettos!
Or that petty officers looked like this.
But if it worked, it worked. Whatever keeps your eye on the prize. Defeat the enemy and come home to touch naked women. Surely the Axis boys had pin-ups, too. Maybe it just came down to which side had the best pin-ups?
Even German hospitals knew what was effective medicine.
The image of Marika Rokk, famed music star in Nazi Germany, may have helped this wounded German soldier heal. But they still lost.
Like it or not, right or wrong, men like attractive naked women. That’s how they’re hardwired, so there’s no point in faulting that. Look at the interior cabin of any semi truck today. By comparison, WWII pin-ups (whether art or photography) would seem tame. I bet it’s pretty raunchy in that cab. It would probably gross me out. But that’s the price of freedom. And thank God for freedom.
You’ve seen the mustache. You’ve seen the melting clock, the one that looks like a bad acid trip. The evidence is already there.
“They Made America”–Harold Evans
But this is another level of crazy. I don’t mean mental illness. Although, yes, perhaps that. I mean stranger than fiction. Here we see Dalí in a Johnny Depp bob, seated near his wife, Gala. Gala was already in an open marriage when she met Dalí, but decided to divorce her then-husband, poet Paul Eluard, yet continued to sleep with him while now married to Dalí. Yes, that makes sense.
Anyhoo, that’s a Hereford bull sprawled on the crumpled carpet of Mrs. Caresse Phelps Crosby, herself involved in an open marriage (and suicide pact, not to mention ample drug abuse and writing porn as a lark). Crosby, preparing for a ball one night, despised her corset and instead fashioned two handkerchiefs and ribbon into a bra with needle and thread. Of this she said, “I can’t say the brassiere will ever take as great a place in history as the steamboat, but I did invent it.”
Speaking for most American women, I couldn’t care less about a steamboat. But I thank you for the bras.
Just in case that surrealist scene isn’t odd enough, try to wrap your head around this. Per www.telegraph.co.uk, Dalí filled up a white Rolls Royce Phantom II with 500kg of cauliflower and drove it from Spain to Paris in December 1955. The reasoning was, he later told an audience of 2,000, that “everything ends up in the cauliflower!” He explained to American journalist Mike Wallace three years later that he was attracted to their “logarithmic curve.” Because that makes sense.
And listverse.com tells of a five-year-old Dalí pushing his friend off a bridge with no railing. Just for fun. Dalí is also noted as saying, “Hitler turned me on in the highest…His fat back, especially when I saw him appear in the uniform with the Sam Browne belt and shoulder straps that tightly held in his flesh, aroused in me a delicious gustatory thrill originating in the mouth and affording me a Wagnerian ecstasy.”
And if that doesn’t turn Dalí off to you forever, I don’t know what could. Enjoy your weekend.
It’s hard to effectively capture an image of nighttime rainfall, but this pic from the ’73 Indiana University yearbook did a nice job. It’s the kind of shot that sets a mood and makes you want to write a short story.
Here’s the Von Lee on a frosty winter’s day.
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And check this one out, during heavy rainfall. I’d want to get my feet out of that oily water.
This one from http://www.brosher.com is priceless. Sunset practically explodes behind the Von Lee. Gorgeous.
The sun sets behind Bloomington’s historic Von Lee building on Monday, July 13, 2015. Formerly a theater, the Von Lee now houses IU Communications on the second and third floors. (James Brosher/IU Communications)
Have you ever seen a finer looking bus than this? Look at this condiment-colored sexy beast, truckin’ along in majestic Heinz 57 and Grey Poupon paint job. Get down with your bad self, Trailways Bus!
Even the captain can sense it, although his smirk seems to endorse it, rather than condemn it. I doubt Captain Stubing would have approved.
The 1949 ad is for Lurline cruises, part of the Matson Lines. Nope, never heard of them. But isn’t the artwork lovely? Lurline sounds like the name of a girl in a gabardine dress, brewing sweet tea on a window sill, if you ask me. You can bet the narrow-waisted girl in the chartreuse dress here was not named Lurline. Lurlines do not go on cruises with older men. Or do they?
This all sounds inviting: shuffleboard, dancing, listening to a radio because there were no televisions on board, having a gay evening under the Pacific moon. Maybe she does know what she’s doing after all.
I came across this gaming guide from a relative’s 1954 visit to Vegas. It had everything one would expect of a Saharan theme. Arab sheikh? Check. Sand and camels? Check. Hedy Lamarr in transparent veils? Check. But then it gets weird. Topless men and women carrying dice, cards, and roulette wheels? Is that what people in the Sahara desert look like?
Nope. The Tuareg are the principal inhabitants of the Saharan interior of North Africa, a nomadic, pastoral, Muslim people. They don’t look like that rendering at all. Their hair is much more fantastic.
Now arethere women in Africa who go topless? Absolutely. Do they carry things on their heads? Sure. Do they have naked babies, carrying spears? Doubtful. I was reminded of the Louis CK SNL episode, wherein he discusses mild racism in his opening monologue. NBC has already shown it twice this year, which makes sense, as SNL evidently does five new shows per season and then shows reruns.
This Sahara ad, though, is more than mild. And redunkulous. I mean, how long can a woman hold a clock like that without her arms hurting? And that necklace would chafe.
And what about these fellows below, holding spears and shields? I just don’t see what this has to do with the Sahara. Veils I get. This I don’t. I imagine it’s offensive to many. But it also just looks odd.
Who knows? Maybe people of the Sahara would find our dancing girls’ outfits absurd. These gals were part of the “nocturnal diversion.”
That very Congo Room hosted entertainers for 59 years, until the Sahara closed in 2011. Big names like Mae West and Ray Bolger.
And if you were lucky enough to be in Vegas back in the day, you might have even caught a glimpse of this guy out front.
…or when they smoked (which was often)…
It’s hard to effectively capture an image of nighttime rainfall, but this pic from the ’73 Indiana University yearbook did a nice job. It’s the kind of shot that sets a mood and makes you want to write a short story.
I Don't Get It 