When I discovered Google Books had made available
the entire run of Life Magazine online, as you might imagine, I was thrilled. When I was an undergrad, I had found the paper edition in the basement of the University Library, and loved to flip through them. I'm attracted to it for lots of reasons: reading about historical events as they were happening offers an interesting perspective. Also, like a lot of history, especially wartime history, it places a humbling perspective on your own problems. I mean sure, things may be bad, but can you imagine opening up a magazine to discover enemy submarines were sinking all the merchant ships they can find off of New Jersey?
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| The fact that Life editors are sometimes blind to unintentional comedy is a nice bonus. |
Now that I'm sitting here actually thinking about it, Life in some ways is like the internet, except edited and photographed by brilliant people. And of course, of its era. Very much of its era.
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| I mean, seriously, look at that gross '40s woman. |
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| Dad looks so smug. |
I've been casually reading issues for the past several years, and have been cutting out and saving images like a grandmother with a pair of scissors. So I'm going to break out my digital shoeboxes and be sharing some of these, especially (like now) when I'm working hard on a new infodump post which is absorbing most of my writing-time. I'll try to keep it to some sort of structure. So! Look forward to more:
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| War Pictures! |
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| Things UTTERLY CONTRARY to the 2014 Western World! |
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| Faces of madness! Where the artist was instructed to convey expression of joy and enthusiasm! |
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| And went a might bit too far, and entered into 'consumer delirium' territory. | | |
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| Old Ads that are amazing! |
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| ...and other shocking revelations. |
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