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Vintage: Portrait of Miss Lily Elsie (1900s and 1910s)

Vintage: Portrait of Miss Lily Elsie (1900s and 1910s)

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Lily Elsie’s biggest success came in creating the title role in the English-language version of The Merry Widow in the London production. Edwardes took Elsie to see the original German version (Die Lustige Witwe) in Berlin. Elsie was at first reluctant to take on the demanding part, thinking her voice too light for the role, but Edwardes persuaded her to…
Vintage: Great Boston Fire of 1872 (Exactly 145 years ago)

Vintage: Great Boston Fire of 1872 (Exactly 145 years ago)

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The conflagration began at 7:20 p.m. on November 9, 1872, in the basement of a commercial warehouse at 83-87 Summer Street. The fire was finally contained 12 hours later, after it had consumed about 65 acres (26 ha) of Boston’s downtown, 776 buildings and much of the financial district, and caused $73.5 million in damage. Despite these devastations, only thirteen…
Historic B&W photos of London, England (19th Century)

Historic B&W photos of London, England (19th Century)

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London was the world’s largest city from about 1831 to 1925. London’s overcrowded conditions led to cholera epidemics, claiming 14,000 lives in 1848, and 6,000 in 1866. Rising traffic congestion led to the creation of the world’s first local urban rail network. The Metropolitan Board of Works oversaw infrastructure expansion in the capital and some of the surrounding counties; it…
Vintage: Everyday Life in Mongolia (1925)

Vintage: Everyday Life in Mongolia (1925)

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With the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911, Mongolia under the Bogd Khaan declared independence. But, the newly established Republic of China considered Mongolia to be part of its own territory. Yuan Shikai, the President of the Republic of China, considered the new republic to be the successor of the Qing. Bogd Khaan said that both Mongolia and China…
Vintage: Daily Life of Paris during World War I by Charles Lansiaux

Vintage: Daily Life of Paris during World War I by Charles Lansiaux

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Charles Lansiaux (1855-1939) became a photographer at the end of the 19th century. He established his own business in 1903, describing his company purpose as “Artistic and industrial photography, city works, emergency works, interior photography with artificial light, enlargements, amateur documentary photography.” At the beginning of the war in 1914, he started documenting daily life in Paris, far from the…
Vintage: Paris during World War I by Charles Lansiaux

Vintage: Paris during World War I by Charles Lansiaux

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Charles Lansiaux (1855-1939) became a photographer at the end of the 19th century. He established his own business in 1903, describing his company purpose as “Artistic and industrial photography, city works, emergency works, interior photography with artificial light, enlargements, amateur documentary photography.” At the beginning of the war in 1914, he started documenting daily life in Paris, far from the…
Vintage: Scotland during the Edwardian Era (1900s)

Vintage: Scotland during the Edwardian Era (1900s)

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The Edwardian era was a time of unprecedented social and political revolution in Britain. By the start of the new century, the country had reached a level of such general prosperity that, for the first time, working men and women were in a position to both argue and agitate for a share of the wealth. In Scotland, at the centre…
Vintage: Everyday Life in Norway (19th Century)

Vintage: Everyday Life in Norway (19th Century)

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Life in Norway (especially economic life) was “dominated by the aristocracy of professional men who filled most of the important posts in the central government”. There was no strong bourgeosie class in Norway to demand a breakdown of this aristocratic control of the economy. Thus, even while revolution swept over most of the countries of Europe in 1848, Norway was…
Vintage: World’s First Fitness Machines (1892)

Vintage: World’s First Fitness Machines (1892)

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The gyms of today have developed from a prototype designed by Doctor Gustaf Zander more than 150 years ago. Zander was born in Stockholm in 1835. In 1857, when working as a gymnastics teacher, he realised that he didn’t have enough time or energy to teach all of his students properly. His solution was to build a number of appliances…
Vintage: Everyday Life of Native American People (Early 20th Century)

Vintage: Everyday Life of Native American People (Early 20th Century)

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For thirty years, with the backing of men like J. Pierpont Morgan and former president Theodore Roosevelt, but at great expense to his family life and his health, Edward S. Curtis lived among dozens of native tribes, devoting his life to his calling until he produced a definitive and unparalleled work, The North American Indian. The New York Herald hailed…
Vintage: Everyday Life of American Jews (Early 20th Century)

Vintage: Everyday Life of American Jews (Early 20th Century)

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Jewish migration to the United States increased dramatically in the early 1880s, as a result of persecution and economic difficulties in parts of Eastern Europe. Most of these new immigrants were Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazi Jews, though most came from the poor rural populations of the Russian Empire and the Pale of Settlement, located in modern-day Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova.…
Vintage: Public portraits of President Theodore Roosevelt (1900s)

Vintage: Public portraits of President Theodore Roosevelt (1900s)

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On September 6, President McKinley was attending the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York when he was shot by Leon Czolgosz. Roosevelt was vacationing in Vermont, and traveled to Buffalo to visit McKinley in the hospital. It appeared that McKinley would recover, so Roosevelt resumed his vacation in the Adirondacks. When McKinley’s condition worsened, Roosevelt began the trip to Buffalo.…
Vintage: Nebraska Mug Shots (Late 19th Century)

Vintage: Nebraska Mug Shots (Late 19th Century)

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The Nebraska State Penitentiary used photography beginning in 1867 to record the likeness of the state’s most infamous residents. The Omaha police photographed suspects when arrested. Whether the people depicted were guilty or innocent, behind every photograph is a human story. This glimpse back at some of the thousands of photographs in the Nebraska State Penitentiary and Omaha Police Court…
Vintage: Everyday Life of Mexico City (1900s)

Vintage: Everyday Life of Mexico City (1900s)

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Under the rule of Porfirio Díaz, Mexico City experienced a massive transformation. Díaz’s goal was to create a city which could rival the great European cities. He and his government came to the conclusion that they would use Paris as a model, while still containing remnants of Amerindian and Hispanic elements. This style of Mexican-French fusion architecture became colloquially known…
Vintage: Cycling down the Eiffel Tower (1923)

Vintage: Cycling down the Eiffel Tower (1923)

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In 1923, as France was recovering from the first World War, journalist Pierre Labric decided to ride a bicycle down the stairs from Level 1 of the Eiffel Tower (there are three levels). The Eiffel tower is 324 metres in height and was built in 1889 and was named after its engineer Gustave Eiffel who’s company built the tower. The…
Vintage: Everyday Life of Atlanta, Georgia (19th Century)

Vintage: Everyday Life of Atlanta, Georgia (19th Century)

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After the Civil War ended in 1865, Atlanta was gradually rebuilt. Due to the city’s superior rail transportation network, the state capital was moved from Milledgeville to Atlanta in 1868. In the 1880 Census, Atlanta surpassed Savannah as Georgia’s largest city. Beginning in the 1880s, Henry W. Grady, the editor of the Atlanta Constitution newspaper, promoted Atlanta to potential investors…
Vintage: Everyday Life in Belgium (1900s)

Vintage: Everyday Life in Belgium (1900s)

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Belgium was one of the first countries to experience an Industrial Revolution, which brought prosperity in the 19th century but also opened a political dichotomy between liberal businessmen and socialist workers. The king set up his own private colonial empire in the Belgian Congo, which the government took over after a major scandal in 1908. Belgium was neutral but its…
Vintage: Cléo de Mérode Portraits (1890s and 1900s)

Vintage: Cléo de Mérode Portraits (1890s and 1900s)

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Posing for many photographers who diffuse her image worldwide, in newspapers and postcards, she is elected Beauty Queen in 1896 among various celebrities. The same year, she enhances her fame when a white marble sculpture, La Danseuse, by Alexandre Falguière, is said to have been moulded on her body; facing a public scandal, she claims she only lent her features…