Vintage Photos: Erwin Blumenfeld

  

Expressionist photography by German-American Erwin Blumenfeld (1897–1969). 

Nothing is new.

Vintage Photos: Dresden. Germany

 

Erich Kaestner's autobiography When I Was a Little Boy begins with a lament for Dresden: "I was born in the most beautiful city in the world. Even if your father, child, was the richest man in the world, he could not take you to see it, because it does not exist any more. (...) In a thousand years was her beauty built, in one night was it utterly destroyed".

Vintage photos: New York girls

Glimpses of the past from New York Library's digital collection.

The Witch Girl (cinema 1915)

Contests - Beauty - Television Girl - Winner and Runner-Up

(Two guesses who is who... )

Country Girl

New York World's Fair, 1940

New York World's Fair, 1940

Girl and calf, ca. 1920s

 

Teresa Trull with dog, 1975

Woman with dogs on bridge, ca. 1939

Vintage Photos: Frances Benjamin Johnston

I recently discovered the wonderful works of photographer Frances Benjamin Johnston (1864-1952).

Portrait of Alice Roosevelt, c 1902. (She is holding her little dog Leo in this image. Incidentally, young Alice also had a little Pekingese dog that was given to her by the Chinese Dowager Empress Cixi. This striking young woman, beloved by the American public of the day for her wit and "devil-may-care attitude" would go on to describe herself as a hedonist in later years.)

Seven women working in Roycroft shop, E. Aurora, N.Y. 1900.

Ferry.

A child of the Orient.

Frances Benjamin Johnston, full-length portrait, seated in front of fireplace, facing left, holding cigarette in one hand and a beer stein in the other, in her Washington, D.C. studio.

Vintage photos: San Francisco

Lovely images from the  S.F. Public Library digital collection. Sometimes the description is more charming than the photo.

Referee Billy Burke proclaims the match between Glen Stentson from the Richmond Boys Club and Bobby Munoz from the San Francisco Boys Club a draw, 1950.

Group of women riding a Powell Street cable car to advertise the

"Fishermen's Fiesta" at Fisherman's Wharf, 1946.

Crab stand at Fisherman's Wharf, 1946.

Lois Thomas viewing downtown San Francisco from

Russian Hill, with Telegraph Hill in background, 1944.

Woman and a child playing with a dog at Ocean Beach, 1943.

Reflection of Moon Bridge in the Japanese Tea Garden, 1964.

Model June Smith demonstrating the practical uses

of motor scooters for American housewives, 1959.

McCoppin School student Jacqueline Darling

posing with her pet cat, "Tige", and dog, "Bing", 1939.