Old Fashioned Fashion

   Women's clothes have always changed accoding to current fashion but probably never as much as the late 1800s. Crinolines, hoop skirts, and bustles all adorned women who were also confined in restrictive corsets. In those days, most women learned about new trends through the use of fashion plates, which were inserted in various popular publications.  Here's a selection of plates from that period.

1860s Fashion

Godey's Magazine 1870

1870s Fashion

1860s Fashion

1882 Fashion

Modelès de Madame Carlier 1897

1880s Fashion

Morning Dress 1880

1883 Fashion

Hats 1898

Godey's Magazine 1874

Dress 1893

Godey's Magazine 1874

The appearance of "bloomers" in the 1870s raised the question of who wears the pants in the family?

It's After Midnight

   Midnight was a Mystery Man Hero that ran in Smash Comics during the 1940s.  Here is a sample of one of the stories.

Golden Age of Hollywood: Ingrid Bergman

   Ingrid Bergman was ranked as the fourth greatest female star of American cinema of all time by the American Film Institute. This beautiful Swedish actress won three Academy Awards and captivated audiences in the 1940s with her intense performances in films such as Gaslight, For Whom The Bell Tolls and Casablanca. Here are some images to remind us of her sophistication and beauty.

Classic Beauty

Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman in Gaslight

Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant

It's Howdy Doody Time

    Like every other kid in the 1950s, I loved to watch Howdy Doody, As one of the first children's programs to make it big on television, it had the perfect mix of comedy, music and audience participation. This pioneering show ran from 1947 to 1960. We came to love Buffalo Bob, Clarabelle and the other characters in much the same way a later generation would with the Muppets. So, for old times sake, here are some reminders of a simpler time.

Nuclear Nightmares

   As a child growing up in the Fifties, I, like everyone else, lived with the fear that at any moment, the sirens would go off and nuclear bombs would start falling. As I sat huddled in the school basement with my fellow students during one of our many air raid drills, I tried to imagine what an actual attack would be like. Our only visual image was the mushroom cloud, which came to be the symbol of nuclear war. In case you've forgotten, here are some examples of the over one thousand nuclear tests in the Fifties and Sixties.

Atomic cloud over Hiroshima

Nagasaki bomb

Atomic Test Dominic-Truckee, 210-kt - June 9, 1962, Marshall Islands

Hydrogen Bomb Toroidal Cloud

Grable Test 1953

Eniwetok - Army Postcard

Hardtack II Socorro

Ivy King Test

Mohawk Test Mushroom Cloud

Licorne Test

Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands. Bomb Test, July 1946

Redwing Apache Test

Upshot-Knothole atomic test