The bittersweet taste of war and victory is in the air as America transitions into peace on Nov. 19, 1945. Vivacious Rita Daigle is on the LIFE cover displaying wide belts on her 21 inch waist. Just 18 years old, Rita graduated from convent school the prior year and soon became a GI Pin-Up girl [...]
Japan’s Army is flexing it’s muscles on Jan. 11, 1937 and is actually running the government. The Army’s strength now is 250,000 men and 13,000 officers. According to LIFE, “No soldier in the world takes so readily to discipline. He can march 50 miles a day on a diet of fish and rice. He will [...]
Dec. 28, 1936 presents LIFE in it’s sixth week of existence. Already LIFE is selling 600,000 copies a week and squeezing the existing presses dry trying to meet demand. This high-caliber printing job is done on heavily enameled paper almost at newspaper speed by R.R. Donnelley & Sons in Chicago. LIFE is clearly a “picture [...]
LIFE February 2, 1942 was a grim time for Allied Forces on all fronts. The Japanese and Germans were inflicting stunning losses. America’s planes were mostly untested in combat theaters and some U.S. senators were saying, “…that only one out of four U.S. planes can match enemy planes.” In the case of the B-19 pictured [...]
The bittersweet taste of war and victory is in the air as America transitions into peace on Nov. 19, 1945. Vivacious Rita Daigle is on the LIFE cover displaying wide belts on her 21 inch waist. Just 18 years old, Rita graduated from convent school the prior year and soon became a GI Pin-Up girl autographing 200,000 pictures of herself.
British wartime brides of American servicemen are running out of patience at the end of 1945 and take to the London streets to demonstrate. They all want to get to America and settle down. Some have not seen their husbands in two or three years, are short on money and have babies. Almost all come from working class families, are very young, and have experienced harrowing wartime bombing. Parliament studied the matter, decided gravely it was a U.S. problem, and ran for cover. It wasn’t until February, 1946, that the exodus of almost 70,000 brides (and a few grooms) began. For the next five months 20 converted American war ships were in perpetual motion across the Atlantic carrying a procession of brides. During the war British troops have mixed feelings about American boys taking “their” girls away, saying Americans are, “overpaid, oversexed and over here.” Americans troops counter by saying Brits are, “underpaid, undersexed and under Eisenhower.”
As the brides arrived in the U.S. most slip into their new lives and are forgotten. Many form social clubs that serve for decades to offer emotional support. The cost of travel back to England or even long distance calling to England is prohibitive for most brides. It is inevitable that some brides arrived to find their husband was now in another relationship, or living in some God-forsaken place that they find untenable. In anticipation of this, the U.S. Government offered brides free return passage to England for up to one year after arrival. However, brides whose children were American citizens, a permanent return to England could mean losing custody in a U.S. divorce. As the years go by and the brides move and die, many social clubs morph into British heritage clubs welcoming men and others of British heritage that did not experience the war. Although it is difficult to determine, it appears that these War Bride marriages were very successful and some estimate that less that 10% broke up.
During most of the war and just after, West Point had the best football team in the country. Led by their spectacular backfield of “Doc” Blanchard (Mr. Inside) and Glenn Davis (Mr. Outside), Army rolled to a record of 30-0-1 over the course of four years. They didn’t just win they crushed opponents. It wasn’t until late October, 1947 that Army’s unbeaten string was broken 21-20 by a surprising Columbia University team.
Here we see in full color the first atomic bomb blast in the New Mexico desert. The fury of the fireball is captured as the earth trembles and the scientists dance for joy. What was theoretical is now a reality. This test was delayed for almost two weeks because of unusual desert rain. Even before this first bomb was exploded, a second bomb was secretly sent to the Pacific for an Aug. 6, 1945 attack at Hiroshima. The New Mexico bomb released more power than 20,000 pounds of TNT and is visible for more than 200 miles.
Japan’s Army is flexing it’s muscles on Jan. 11, 1937 and is actually running the government. The Army’s strength now is 250,000 men and 13,000 officers. According to LIFE, “No soldier in the world takes so readily to discipline. He can march 50 miles a day on a diet of fish and rice. He will commit suicide in action.” In just a few short years Allied forces would be on the receiving end of these personal qualities. LIFE concludes that the Japanese “are gluttons for exercise and clean-living.”
Miners in the anthracite coal region of Pennsylvania had been experiencing hard times since the mid 1920′s when coal companies introduced new machinery that displaced many men. And when the depression arrived people and towns were becoming more desperate every day. Miners used the skills acquired on the job to secretly mine coal on company land to heat their homes. Then they used it as barter for food and other services. As the depression continued these illegal operations expanded to the point where thousands of tons were being mined each day. The coal companies had been attempting to cartelize the industry for decades and were strongly opposed to this competing production. By 1936 400,000 tons of stolen coal was being sold to New York City alone, LIFE states. Local juries would not convict the bootleggers, and local, state and federal officials would not pursue the issue. Government officials knew that unemployment was up to 75% in some PA towns and but for bootleg coal many faced starvation. Mining coal illegally was also very dangerous work. Timbers are required for support and miners used whatever timber was available nearby which was often inadequate. Many collapsed and children were at risk of falling in them. As a consequence of years of illegal mining, fires like those in the Centralia, PA mines…started in 1962…continue to burn today. Bootleg mining declined during WWII as men were sent to war. Alternate fuel sources like oil and gas greatly expanded after WWII and bought an end to this activity.
In the early days of LIFE pictures of pretty women in baths or bathing suits were often featured. In this issues we learn that a wax bath to remove two pounds of excess weight cost $10, and it involved 50 pounds of hot wax being applied on each female patron. In London a Thames River mud bath was popular with the fashionable set. A 15 cent bottle of powdered milk was all that was necessary for American women at home to enjoy a milk bath cherished by the Romans since 100 BC.
Dec. 28, 1936 presents LIFE in it’s sixth week of existence. Already LIFE is selling 600,000 copies a week and squeezing the existing presses dry trying to meet demand. This high-caliber printing job is done on heavily enameled paper almost at newspaper speed by R.R. Donnelley & Sons in Chicago. LIFE is clearly a “picture magazine” at this point and doesn’t delve into the subject matter with much narrative. It will take another year or so for the magazine to find it’s “voice.”
Dancing was the rage in 1936 and “…people of all ages and sizes are dancing as never before.” And Arthur Murray’s dancing school was booming. The Murray building in New York City had 128 studios occupying eight floors. A loudspeaker phonograph system offered a constant choice of four kinds of dance melodies. Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller Jr. had two Murray instructors come to their home three times a week for two hour sessions. It was an ambition of every amateur to some day dance like Fred Astaire, whose amusing, wry expression is as familiar as his flying feet to millions of movie goers. The Lindy Hop was Harlem’s favorite dance which is sort of a strut plus fox-trotting and several improvisations thrown in.
LIFE Publisher Henry Luce’s parents were missionaries in China where he was raised before being sent to boarding school in England and then America. He introduces Chiang Kai-Shek to America in this issue and declares him “Hero of the week.” Luce stuck with this corrupt and ruthless politician and military leader until the bitter end in 1949. In 1927 Chiang split with the Communist wing of the Nationalist party and set up the Nationalist Government in Nanking. As the above pictures illustrate, captured Communists were executed on the spot by the Nationalists. “Strangest paradox in Chinese character is its mixture of tenderness and cruelty,” rationalizes Luce. In addition to the Chinese Civil War in 1936, China was also resisting the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. Note the above picture of Japan’s gigantic electric trumpets to serve as ears for detecting enemy planes.
