These 40 photographs span the period from the advent of photography to the 1970s. They provide a glimpse into another world. For me, the most revealing photographs are those of the nineteenth century and the early 1900s. Being almost alien in the 21st century, I find them both enchanting and repulsing in equal measure.
Main picture: a wood-plank prison in Wyoming, 1893
La Plaza, as seen from the Pico House. Pueblo Los Angeles, c. 1869
Slave auction place, c. 1870
Burnt District Coffee House in Chicago after the Fire, 1871
Telephone wires in New York, 1887
Hanging of a stagecoach robber in Texas, c. 1890-1900
North American native Chilocco Indian Agricultural School basketball
Alice Huyler Ramsey (November 11, 1886 – September 10, 1983), the first woman to drive across the United States from coast to coast, in 1909
Opium den in San Francisco, 1900
Chinatown Squad of the San Francisco Police Department posing with sledge hammers and axes in front of August Pistolesi’s grocery store at 752 Washington Street, 1895
Neighbours of Japanese origin were already unwanted in some neighborhoods in 1923
Log motor home by Wade, interior
Log motor home by Wade, 1922
Motorcycle chariots, 1920s
Lawn mowers of the White House grounds, 1918
A life guard and a doctor attempt to save a swimmers life on Coney Island Beach, 1940 while a bystanders inappropriately smiles ebuliently for the camera
Drive-In restaurant on West Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, 1932
Workers lay bricks to pave 28th Street in Manhattan, 1930
North American native switchboard operator, 1925
Three friends take a joyride on their ‘new’ vehicle, Ohio, c. 1924
Workers lay bricks to pave 28th Street in Manhattan, 1930
Workers lay bricks to pave 28th Street in Manhattan, 1930
Coney Island, NY, 1940
Victor Mature, Marilyn Monroe and Queen Elizabeth (both 30 at the time) meet at a movie premier in London. October 1956
Elvis Presley joins the Army, 1958
Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev eating a hot dog in Des Moines, Iowa, on which he commented “It’s excellent… we make good sausages but yours are better”, 1959
Portrait of hockey goalie Terry Sawchuk before face masks became standard in 1966
Minoru Yamasaki (right) posing with a model of the World Trade Center he designed, 1964
Couple and friend being abused in a restaurant for the latter being black, USA, 1963
In 1967, challenging the all-male tradition of the Boston Marathon, Katherine Switzer, at the time a headstrong 20-year-old junior at Syracuse University, entered the race
New York City sidewalks filled with trash during the 1968 strike of sanitation workers
Arnold Schwarzenegger on his first time in New York, 1968
Children play a game on the Xerox Alto, one of the first personal computers with a graphic user interface, 1973. Its monitor was switchable between portrait and landscape mode
U.S. President Nixon jumps down from the trunk of a limousine carrying him & Pakistani President Yahya Khan in a motorcade to Government House in Lahore on August 1, 1969
Statue of Liberty as seen from Jersey City, 1963
President Carter with engineers and solar panels newly installed on the White House, 1979. President Reagan had them removed in 1986, to be reinstalled by President Obama in 2010
Barack Obama posing with a group of friends that called themselves the Choom Gang, Hawaii, c. 1979. Choom was slang for smoking marijuana
Robin Williams joins the stunning women of the Denver Broncos’ Pony Express as pro football’s first male cheerleader and prances before 70,000 cheering fans in Denver’s Mile High Stadium
John Travolta takes Princess Diana for a dance in the White House
Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan posing with clay soldiers at the Mausoleum of Emperor Qin Shi Huang, 1984
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