The article covers women’s baseball with interesting pictures showing women’s baseball teams from World War I and the 1950s (including pictures of Ruth Engle and Doris Sams), and also pictures of figure skaters and golfers to contrast fashion trends of the first part of the 20th century.
Here is an interesting history of tobacco advertisements using pretty women and pinups as bait, and to gain broader social acceptance of smoking cigarettes! To explain changes in tobacco advertising, you have to take a historical perspective, which this article explains best. Briefly the history of tobacco ads (according to this 1953 article):
In World War I, Mary Pickford became the favorite pinup of soldiers when she dressed in uniform and toured the nation selling Liberty Bonds. In World War II, “demand for it [pictures of Betty Grable”] ran as high as 20,000 per week…”. “Able Grable”‘s legs appear in Army topographic maps designed to teach recruits how to hit their mark.
Pictures of women in World War I and World War II. How early feminism and wars influenced women’s fashions.
This is an interesting article on how the Motion Picture Production Code affected the evolution of cheesecake pinup, and changed the recipe.
Pictures speak louder than words. In these last pages are images of World War I fighter planes in combat, famous air fighters, pictures of recuperating soldiers, descriptions and photos of hospital train cars, and, finally, a timeline of major events in World War I that happened between 1914 and 1917. These last pages also include a copy of Woodrow Wilson’s speech, recommending that America declare war on Germany.
Here are some pictures of air planes used in World War I, and even one of a dirigible guarding the English coast! Military use of airplanes was still very new at this point, and shown are a picture of an English plane crashed into a tree and a German plane that was brought down near Marne. I think the photo of a raider dropping a bomb is just amazing for this time period, the caption says the photo was captured by an accompanying plane. Another interesting arial photograph is one of a World War I American Air Squadron in flight.
I am not sure why I didn’t buy this photographic history book… It has some really good pictures of World War I in it, and I believe it was written and published before World War II.
The illustrated “blouses” section was pretty interesting, especially since I sell vintage clothes. It’s nice to have precise definitions, general illustrations on how the garment was worn, and approximate dates for when the look was fashionable!
