Eyes On Vintage and History

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

N.Y. Public Library

New York Public Library on opening day between 1910 and ca. 1915.

Flickr | Bain News Service,, publisher | George Grantham Bain Collection LOC

Alexander Haley

Alex Haley, (August 11, 1921 – February 10, 1992), US Coast Guard From Wikimedia Commons

United States Coast Guard

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Adeline Virginia Woolf, January 25, 1882 - March 28, 1941, was an English writer, and one of the foremost modernists of the twentieth century. During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a central figure in the influential Bloomsbury Group of intellectuals. Her most famous works include the novels Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927) and Orlando (1928), and the book-length essay A Room of One's Own (1929), with its famous dictum, "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."

Source: Wikipedia

Vintage Ad

Source: Flickr

Vintage Fashion in Iran

Vintage Fashion in Iran: Photographs from the first half of the 20th century. Establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979 meant that women were forced to wear Hijab and that it is strictly forbidden for women to be photographed without Hijab. There was a time, following the military coup of 1920 when women were forced not to wear Hijab. Here are a few photographs from the first half of the twentieth century, the rise of industrial era in Iran.

Source: Payvand

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Greta Garbo

Greta Garbo (18 September 1905 – 15 April 1990), born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson, was a Swedish film actress and an international star and icon.

via Pinterest

Sammy Davis Jr. and Son

Sammy Davis Jr. and his son Mark in 1964. Photo: Leonard McCombe/Time-Life Pictures.

Vintage Black Glamour | tumblr

1931 Fashion Boots

1931 Fashion Boots via tumblr

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Spiral

Building spiral turbines c. 1930

Retronaut | Source: German Federal Archive

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Post Mortem Photography

Victorian era parents posing with their deceased daughter.

Nineteenth-century photograph of a deceased child with flowers

The earliest post-mortem photographs are usually close-ups of the face or shots of the full body and rarely include the coffin. The subject is usually depicted so as to seem in a deep sleep, or else arranged to appear more lifelike. Children were often shown in repose on a couch or in a crib, sometimes posed with a favorite toy or other plaything. It was not uncommon to photograph very young children with a family member, most frequently the mother. Adults were more commonly posed in chairs. Flowers were also a common prop in post-mortem photography of all types. Wikipedia

Marie Curie

Marie Curie or Madame Curie (7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934), was a Polish physicist and chemist, working mainly in France, who is famous for her pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the only woman to win in two fields, and the only person to win in multiple sciences. c. 1920 Wikipedia

Friday, April 19, 2013

Blanche McSmith

Blanche McSmith, 1920 – 2006, McSmith was a legislator, social worker, mother, and tireless advocate for social and economic justice in Alaska. Born in Texas in 1920, Blanche Louise Preston graduated from Wiley College in 1941 and earned a masters degree in social work from the University of Southern California in 1944.

Blackpast | Image Courtesy of the Alaska State Library, Historical Collections

Ancient Historical Photography

Earliest known, surviving heliography engraving in existence, made by Nicéphore Niépce in 1825 by the heliography process.

Robert Cornelius, self-portrait, Oct. or Nov. 1839, approximate quarter plate daguerreotype which is a procedure invented in 1839 using silver on a copper plate.