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Vintage: Historic B&W photos of Bombay, India (1890s)

Vintage: Historic B&W photos of Bombay, India (1890s)

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From 1782 onwards, the city was reshaped with large-scale civil engineering projects aimed at merging all the seven islands of Bombay into a single amalgamated mass by way of a causeway called the Hornby Vellard, which was completed by 1784. In 1817, the British East India Company under Mountstuart Elphinstone defeated Baji Rao II, the last of the Maratha Peshwa…
Vintage: Portraits of Blanche Sweet – Silent Movie Star

Vintage: Portraits of Blanche Sweet – Silent Movie Star

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Blanche Sweet (1896 – 1986) was an American silent film actress who began her career in the earliest days of the Hollywood motion picture film industry. Sweet was known for her energetic, independent roles, at variance with the ‘ideal’ Griffith type of vulnerable, often fragile, femininity. After many starring roles, her first real landmark film was the 1911 Griffith thriller…
Vintage: Glass Plate Negatives of Norfolk, Virginia (1919)

Vintage: Glass Plate Negatives of Norfolk, Virginia (1919)

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In the 1980’s 46 glass plate negatives were found in the attic of a Norfolk home. The plates measured 8.5” x 6.5”. Through the generous support of the Norfolk Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Old Dominion University, and Colorcraft Corporation, ten portfolios were created. The contact prints were archivally processed. The photographer remains anonymous. It is assumed that he…
Vintage: Greece (late 19th Ccentury)

Vintage: Greece (late 19th Ccentury)

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Greece remained a very poor country throughout the 19th century. The country lacked raw materials, infrastructure and capital. Agriculture was mostly at the subsistence level, and the only important export commodities were currants, raisins and tobacco. Some Greeks grew rich as merchants and shipowners, and Piraeus became a major port, but little of this wealth found its way to the…
Vintage: Portraits of Geraldine Farrar (1910s)

Vintage: Portraits of Geraldine Farrar (1910s)

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Geraldine Farrar (1882- 1967) was an American soprano opera singer and film actress. Farrar was born in Melrose, Massachusetts, the daughter of baseball player Sidney Farrar, and his wife Henrietta Barnes. At age 5, she began studying music in Boston and by 14 was giving recitals. Later she studied voice with the American soprano Emma Thursby in New York City,…
Vintage: Vietnamese Lunar New Year – Tet Holiday (1920s)

Vintage: Vietnamese Lunar New Year – Tet Holiday (1920s)

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Vietnamese Lunar New Year or Tet Holiday, is the most important celebration in Vietnamese culture. Vietnamese people usually return to their families during Tết. Some return to worship at the family altar or visit the graves of their ancestors in their homeland. They also clean the graves of their family as a sign of respect. Although Tết is a national…
Vintage: Douglas County, Colorado (19th Century)

Vintage: Douglas County, Colorado (19th Century)

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Douglas County was one of the original 17 counties created in the Colorado Territory by the Colorado Territorial Legislature on November 1, 1861. The county was named in honor of U.S. Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, who died five months before the county was created. The county seat was originally Franktown, but was moved to California Ranch in 1863,…
Vintage: Nazi Propaganda Film Director Leni Riefenstahl (1930s)

Vintage: Nazi Propaganda Film Director Leni Riefenstahl (1930s)

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Leni Riefenstahl (1902 – 2003) was a German film director. Riefenstahl heard Nazi Party (NSDAP) leader Adolf Hitler speak at a rally in 1932 and was mesmerized by his talent as a public speaker. Describing the experience in her memoir, Riefenstahl wrote, “I had an almost apocalyptic vision that I was never able to forget. It seemed as if the…
Vintage: Broken Blossoms (1919)

Vintage: Broken Blossoms (1919)

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Broken Blossoms is a 1919 American silent drama film directed by D.W. Griffith. Cheng Huan (Richard Barthelmess) leaves his native China because he “dreams to spread the gentle message of Buddha to the Anglo-Saxon lands.” His idealism fades as he is faced with the brutal reality of London’s gritty inner-city. However, his mission is finally realized in his devotion to…
Vintage: Historic B&W photos of Delhi, India (1890s)

Vintage: Historic B&W photos of Delhi, India (1890s)

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In 1757, the Afghan ruler, Ahmad Shah Durrani, sacked Delhi. He returned to Afghanistan leaving a Mughal puppet ruler in nominal control. The Marathas again occupied Delhi in 1758, and were in control until their defeat in 1761 at the third battle of Panipat when the city was captured again by Ahmad Shah. However, in 1771, the Marathas established a…
Vintage: Portraits of Colleen Moore – Silent Movie Star

Vintage: Portraits of Colleen Moore – Silent Movie Star

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Colleen Moore (1899 – 1988) was an American film actress who began her career during the silent film era. At age 15 she was taking her first step in Hollywood. Her uncle arranged a screen test with director D.W. Griffith. She wanted to be a second Lillian Gish but instead, she found herself playing heroines in Westerns with stars such…
Vintage: The Last Laugh (1924)

Vintage: The Last Laugh (1924)

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The Last Laugh is a 1924 German silent film directed by German director F. W. Murnau. Jannings’ character is a doorman for a famous hotel, who takes great pride in his work and position. His manager decides that the doorman is getting too old and infirm to present the image of the hotel, and so demotes him to a less…
Vintage: Sherlock Jr. (1924)

Vintage: Sherlock Jr. (1924)

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Sherlock Jr. is a 1924 American silent comedy film directed by and starring Buster Keaton. A movie theater projectionist and janitor (Buster Keaton) is in love with a beautiful girl (Kathryn McGuire). However, he has a rival, the “local sheik” (Ward Crane). Neither has much money. The projectionist buys a $1 box of chocolates, all he can afford, and changes…
Vintage: Greed (1924)

Vintage: Greed (1924)

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Greed is a 1924 American silent film, written and directed by Erich von Stroheim and based on the 1899 Frank Norris novel McTeague. John McTeague is a miner working in Placer County, California. A traveling dentist calling himself Dr. “Painless” Potter visits the town, and McTeague’s mother begs Potter to take her son on as an apprentice. Potter agrees and…
Vintage: Historic B&W photos of Singapore (1890s)

Vintage: Historic B&W photos of Singapore (1890s)

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Raffles arrived in Singapore on 28 January 1819 and soon recognised the island as a natural choice for the new port. The island was then nominally ruled by the Sultan of Johor, who was controlled by the Dutch and the Bugis. However, the Sultanate was weakened by factional division and Tengku Abdu’r Rahman and his officials were loyal to Tengku…
Vintage: Pandora’s Box (1929)

Vintage: Pandora’s Box (1929)

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Pandora’s Box is a 1929 German silent melodrama film based on Frank Wedekind’s plays Erdgeist (Earth Spirit, 1895) and Die Büchse der Pandora (1904). Lulu (Louise Brooks) is the mistress of a respected, middle-aged newspaper publisher, Dr. Ludwig Schön (Fritz Kortner). One day, she is delighted when an old man, her “first patron”, Schigolch (Carl Goetz), shows up at the…
Vintage: Portraits of Bebe Daniels – Silent Movie Star

Vintage: Portraits of Bebe Daniels – Silent Movie Star

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Bebe Daniels (1901 – 1971) was an American actress. In the 1920s, Daniels was under contract with Paramount Pictures. She made the transition from child star to adult in Hollywood by 1922 and by 1924 was playing opposite Rudolph Valentino in Monsieur Beaucaire. Following this she was cast in a number of light popular films, namely Miss Bluebeard, The Manicure…
Vintage: The Wind (1928)

Vintage: The Wind (1928)

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The Wind is a 1928 pre-code American silent romantic drama film directed by Victor Sjöström. An impoverished young woman named Letty Mason (Lillian Gish) travels west by train from Virginia to live at her cousin Beverly’s isolated ranch in Sweetwater, Texas. On the way, she is bothered by the constantly blowing wind. Fellow passenger and cattle buyer Wirt Roddy (Montagu…
Vintage: Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)

Vintage: Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)

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Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans is a 1927 American silent romantic comedy-drama directed by German director F. W. Murnau (in his American film debut) and starring George O’Brien, Janet Gaynor, and Margaret Livingston. A vacationing Woman from the City (Margaret Livingston) lingers in a lakeside town for weeks. After dark, she goes to a farmhouse where the Man (George…