January 22, 1926. Washington, D.C. “Arcade Hockey Club.” And if roller hockey isn’t your cup of tea, we also have Billiards Dancing Bowling.
Washington, D.C., circa 1919. “Sennett girls.” Producer Mack Sennett’s comedy reels featured a bevy of “bathing beauties,” among them Marvel Rea, seen here in the harlequin costume. National Photo Company.
1962, Seattle, Washington, USA – A little girl listens in on The Hearing Exhibition at the Seattle World’s Fair.
Space Pilots. Minneapolis, Minnesota: A small boy’s dream of piloting a rocket ship through outer space came as nearly true as modern science could make it for plastic-helmeted Johnny Bower (left), and Neil Smith, both seven years old. The youngsters got their big break when Minneapolis-Honeywell’s Aeronautical company invited them, among other young sons of technical employees to visit the plant and see what their dads were doing. “Pilots” Bower and Smith are manipulating special computing equipment developed to duplicate characteristics of supersonic craft and the flight conditions they might be expected to encounter.
Host Bud Collyer brings laughter and smiles to the faces of panelists Polly Bergen, Ralph Bellamy and Kitty Carlisle while Hy Gardner remains only mildly amused.
Nazis burn the library of Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin, 1933. In doing so countless texts and documentation of early 20th century LGBTQ* history disappears. Remember, it’s never “just some books.”
Nun using card catalogue in the New York Public Library, 1944. Alfred Eisenstaedt.
Audre Lorde (1934-1992), ca. early 1940s, as a Roman Catholic schoolgirl, dressed for her First Communion.
September 1939. "Liquor store in Gateway District, Minneapolis." 35mm negative by John Vachon for the Farm Security Administration.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. sees off a group of Freedom Riders as they board a bus for Jackson, Miss., on May 24, 1961.
Spelman College graduation.
July 1940. Berrien County, Michigan. "Migrant mother of family from Arkansas in roadside camp of cherry pickers." Our second look at the lady seen here last week. 35mm nitrate negative by John Vachon.
So many great things to post about today. Shorpy has more great early 20th-century images of DC:
Washington, D.C., circa 1919. "Red Cross ambulances at Washington Monument." Harris & Ewing Collection glass negative.
September 1935. Washington, D.C. "Front of Negro home near Capitol. Interiors of these homes vary little. A chair or two and a table, a bed and perhaps an extra mattress on the floor cares for six to ten people." 35mm nitrate negative by Carl Mydans for the Farm Security Administration.
Fuck Yeah Women’s History has an anti-suffrage cartoon from 1915, the mug shot of Julia Aaron, one of the Freedom Riders, and the Motorcycle Queen of Miami, Bessie Stringfield.
An old anti-suffragist cartoon shows a white man being thrown out of a brick building onto the street. The brick building shows three white women looking out the window at the man being thrown out onto the street, and they seem pretty pleased with the situation. The man is well dressed in a top hat and coat and looks incensed at the way he has been treated as he looks back at the building and the women in the doorway that are looking happy with themselves. These women are wearing votes for women buttons and are carrying women’s rights pamphlets. On the buildings are signs that say “Man? The missing link”, “No men admitted”, “Home for lost stolen or strayed suffragettes”, “man disgraces the animal world” and “down with the men”. At the bottom of the image are red words that read “girls I didn’t marry”.
Julia Aaron, 1961. Julia Aaron didn’t just participate in the Freedom Rides, her family also housed some of the many people who arrived in New Orleans in order to integrate inter-state buses and trains.
“Known as the Motorcycle Queen of Miami, Bessie Stringfield started riding when she was 16. She was the first African-American woman to travel cross-country solo, and she did it at age 19 in 1929, riding a 1928 Indian Scout. Bessie traveled through all of the lower 48 states during the ’30s and ’40s at a time when the country was rife with prejudice and hatred. She later rode in Europe, Brazil, and Haiti and during World War II she served as one of the few motorcycle despatch riders for the United States military.”
Black Vintage has a beautiful photograph by Dorothea Lange from 1945:
And Vivat Vintage serves up some cool advertisements:
It’s so exciting to own a new President refrigerator. 1954.
It’s new, it’s practical, it’s pegboard! 1954
But the winner of the “Dang, that is awesome” award for the week goes to the Library of Congress for their National Jukebox project.
The goal of the Jukebox is to present to the widest audience possible early commercial sound recordings, offering a broad range of historical and cultural documents as a contribution to education and lifelong learning.
The Jukebox contains over 10,000 recordings between the years 1901 and 1925. You can browse the collection by genre, artist, date, and even target audience, or you can listen to one of their playlists. They even feature a Day by Day search function that allows you to find songs that were recorded on a specific date. On my birthday in 1904, this version of Auld Lang Syne was recorded:
Emma Goldman, political cartoon, From the Yiddish Press c. 1901
Some new women’s history resources are available for you!
Women’s History Research in Archives at the University of Wisconsin has a new guide out that allows researchers to access a large number of digital primary sources. Topics include:
birth control
bookmobiles
clothing
courtship
pregnancy tests
race relations
women in the armed forces
The bookmobile 1931 -1940. The 1931 Dodge was "manned" by two ladies at all times: one to drive and one to stand on the running board to keep it from tipping over. Proper attire included "a long-sleeved dress, a broad brimmed hat and gloves" to prevent tanning.
Recruitment poster for the Women's Army Corps (WAC) dated 1965, printed in green and black, and featuring an illustration of a woman in a WAC uniform. The Betty H. Carter Women Veterans Historical Project.
Passive Resistance Training, SNCC, Atlanta, 1960, by James Karales, courtesy Duke University Library.
PASSIVE RESISTANCE TRAINING, SNCC, ATLANTA, GA, 1960, BY JAMES KARALES, COURTESY DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
Scheveningen (La Haye)
Albacete
The FJ Holden, December 1953.
Glory-box girls, newlywed wives, mothers with food-conscious families, young-in-heart grandmothers, even bachelor girls and bachelors gay love Pyrex. 1953.
In some of the first incarnations of DC graffiti, black owned business owners painted “Soul Brother” and other tags on their doors letting looters know that their business identified with the rage felt in the city streets.
