Page 112 – LIFE

The First Super Bowl: The Game That Started It All

January 18, 2020January 1, 2014 by

Sports fans are notoriously contrary, but all would have to agree that “the Super Bowl” is a far better name for pro football’s ultimate contest than “the AFL-NFL World Championship Game,” which is exactly what it was called for the first two years it was played, in 1967 and 1968.

A sign that this championship wasn’t the big deal then that it is today: the game did not sell out the Los Angeles Coliseum. It is the only Super Bowl not to fill all its seats. The matchup was not expected to be competitive, and it wasn’t, especially. Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers handily beat the Kansas City Chiefs 35-10, with quarterback Bart Starr being named the game’s Most Valuable Player. Starr would earn that honor again in Super Bowl II, his Packers beat the Raiders, 33-14 in Miami.

In fact, the real historical importance of these first two lopsided games between the NFL and AFL champs is that it helps explain why what happened in Super Bowl III was such a big deal. After those first two blowouts of the AFL teams, it was a true shocker when Joe Namath and his New York Jets scored that first win for the AFL, and helped pave the road to the NFL-AFL merger.

Here, LIFE.com presents a series of photos, none of which ran in LIFE magazine, made by Bill Ray and Art Rickerby before, during and after that inaugural game.

Almost everything about the Super Bowl has changed drastically in the long years since Green Bay and Kansas City took the field. That’s part of the appeal of the photos. They’re like baby pictures of a game that is about to grow up—way, way up.

The Kansas City Chiefs waited to take the field against the Packers prior to the start of Super Bowl I, Los Angeles, 1967.

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Kansas City’s Fletcher Smith, with the Green Bay Packers massed behind him, prior to the start of Super Bowl I, Los Angeles, 1967.

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Green Bay offensive lineman Jerry Kramer in Super Bowl I, 1967.

Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Super Bowl I, 1967.

Art RickerbyLife Pictures/Shutterstock

Green Bay’s Elijah Pitts eluded Kansas City defenders, Super Bowl I, 1967.

Art Ricker/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Chiefs linebacker E. J. Holub, Super Bowl I, 1967.

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Packers head coach Vince Lombardi, Super Bowl I, 1967.

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Green Bay wide receiver Max McGee, Super Bowl I, 1967, was the game’s surprise star, with seven receptions for 138 yards and two touchdowns.

Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Football’s escalation in the American consciousness took a great leap forward in 1967, when Bart Starr led the Green Bay Packers to a win over the Kansas City Chiefs at the Los Angeles Coliseum in the first Super Bowl.

Photo by Art Rickerby/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Super Bowl I, 1967.

Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Elijah Pitts (No. 22) ran the Packers’ signature play, the power sweep, Super Bowl I, 1967.

Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Tight end Reggie Carolan in the Chiefs’ locker room, Super Bowl I, 1967.

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Kansas City defensive lineman Jerry Mays prior to Super Bowl I, 1967.

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Quarterback Len Dawson in the Chiefs’ locker room, Super Bowl I, 1967.

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Kansas City sideline, Super Bowl I, 1967.

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Green Bay receiver Carroll Dale was hit by the Chiefs’ Willie Mitchell, Super Bowl I, 1967.

Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Green Bay running back Jim Taylor (No. 31), Super Bowl I, 1967.

Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Kansas City’s Fred Williamson was carried off the field after breaking his arm, Super Bowl I, 1967.

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Kansas City head coach Hank Stram, Super Bowl I, 1967.

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Paul Hornung (No. 5), a future Hall of Famer, did not play in the game due to injury, Super Bowl I, 1967.

Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Jim Taylor was tackled by the Chiefs’ Sherrill Headrick, Super Bowl I, 1967.

Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Jim Taylor (No. 31) in Super Bowl I.

Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Jim Taylor, Super Bowl I, 1967.

Art Rickerby—Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

On the Kansas City sideline, Super Bowl I, 1967.

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Fred Williamson was led from the field at the end of the first Super Bowl, 1967. Williamson broke his arm during the game.

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Jerry Mays and other Kansas City Chiefs, Super Bowl I, 1967.

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The Packers’ Herb Adderley and Kansas City’s tight end Fred Arbanas headed to the lockers after Green Bay’s 35-10 victory in Super Bowl I, Los Angeles, 1967.

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Photos from New Year’s Eve in New York as America Joined the War

December 28, 2020December 31, 2013 by

The only way to tell most New Year’s Eves apart is by the numbers that appear on the novelty hats and glasses. But December 31, 1941 was different. This was not long after the December 7 attack on Pearl Harbor, and America was finally, officially engaged in the world war that had begun 15 months before, when Germany invaded Poland. No one knew how long the war would last—but no one was betting it would be over soon.

And yet the party went on—in many ways the same, but it other ways clearly different. Here, LIFE.com remembers a wartime New Year’s Eve in a virtually unrecognizable New York City.

Times Square at midnight on New Year’s Eve, as 1941 became 1942.

John Phillips The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Military police in Times Square on New Year’s Eve, as 1941 turned to 1942.

Gordon Coster The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Times Square in New York City on New Year’s Eve, as 1941 turned to 1942.

Gordon Coster The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

New York City on New Year’s Eve, as 1941 turned to 1942.

Gordon Coster The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Partiers in New York City on New Year’s Eve, as 1941 turned to 1942.

Gordon Coster The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Times Square in New York City on New Year’s Eve, as 1941 turned to 1942.

Gordon Coster The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Gang of New York: LIFE With the Reapers, 1972

January 17, 2020December 24, 2013 by

In August 1972, LIFE magazine published an intimate and, for the time, remarkably even-handed article on the mounting problems associated with street gangs in New York and other cities around the country. The piece focused on one gang in particular, the Reapers in the South Bronx, and featured a series of powerful color pictures by a young photographer named John Shearer.

Shearer was only the second African-American staff photographer ever hired by LIFE—after Shearer’s mentor and friend, the great Gordon Parks—but even he had trouble penetrating the gang’s wall of suspicion.

“I visited the neighborhood five or six times, without my camera,” Shearer recently told LIFE.com, “just so I could get a feel for that part of the South Bronx. A few times I was approached by Reapers asking me what I was dong there, but largely I was left alone.”

Then, on one fortuitous early morning after a late night in the neighborhood, an exhausted Shearer was sitting outside a bodega drinking a cup of coffee when a Reaper literally tripped over his legs. It turned out the young man was none other than Eddie Cuevas, the charismatic president of the gang.

Shearer and Cuevas got to talking, and when Cuevas learned that Shearer was not only a genuine photojournalist with an impressive list of assignments already under his belt, but that he was also the son of Ted Shearer, the groundbreaking visual artist and creator of the long-running comic strip Quincy, it was a done deal. The next day, Cuevas informed Shearer that he could begin shooting the Reapers lives in earnest.

“Eddie fancied himself something of an artist,” Shearer recalled. “He’d designed the Reapers’ colors, and the fact that my dad was the man behind a comic strip that he read every day provided me with my ticket into his world.”

For its part, months later LIFE wrote of that world in its Aug. 25, 1972, issue:

Eddie Cuevas, 20 years old, is the tough president (“Prez) of a tough 200-member Bronx street gang called the Reapers. He has been a Reaper since he was barely into his teens. The Reapers were then declining, losing strength steadily to the more glamorous incoming drug culture. But the street gangs have come back in New York and other major cities. They are larger and more dangerous than before, but now drugs are out. “I saw what they did — lots of guys ripped off, string out or dead,” says Eddie.

In the Bronx alone there are over 100 street gangs … Gangs still argue perpetually, fight often and even occasionally kill over such matters as prestige and “colors,” the sleeveless denim jackets bearing the gang’s name and symbol … “Gangs like the Reapers are good and bad,” says a Bronx patrolman on he beat. “One night they’ll spend two hours helping us look for a rapist, the next they’re out to beat up some civilians.”

The article ended with a mention that Eddie had been arrested on a charge of attempted homicide. He was in Riker’s Island jail, awaiting trial. He eventually beat the charges, and even found some work for a time painting sets and doing other part-time work for theater companies after Shearer made a few inquiries in an effort to Cuevas escape the gang life.

How long Eddie’s “straight” life lasted, though, remains a mystery. Shearer lost touch with him, and with all the other Reapers, not long after the feature ran in LIFE a not-unusual occurrence that, Shearer admitted, was emblematic of one of the toughest parts of the job.

“You’d work for weeks on an assignment,” he told LIFE.com, “and sometimes—not always, but sometimes—the relationships and even the friendships you forged during that time could be pretty intense. But maintaining those relationships was close to impossible. It simply wasn’t like today, with email and Facebook and all the other ways people have of keeping in touch with each other, all over the world. You’d be off on another assignment, and then another, and then another, and there’s just no way that we could have stayed in touch with everyone we came in contact with and stayed on top of what they were doing, or even if they were dead or alive.”

In recent years, some of the Reapers from those days have gotten in touch with Shearer, finding him via the Internet and seeing if he might be interested in meeting again after all this time. In fact, not long ago he was invited to a reunion, of sorts, in the Bronx but it turned out that the weather that day was hellish and it was impossible for him to travel down to see his old (some of them now very old) acquaintances from where he now makes his home in a small town north of New York.

“I really would have liked to have been there,” he said, “but it just didn’t happen that day. Maybe some other time.” The way Shearer says it, that phrase maybe some other time sounds different than when other people say it.

It sounds like he means it. It sounds like he wants it to be true.

John Shearer has been a photographer, writer, director, lecturer and professor. At 17 years old, he was one of the youngest staff photographers at a major publication when he was hired by LOOK magazine, where he covered civil rights and the race riots of the 1960s. He was hired by LIFE in 1968, where he was the second African-American staff photographer in the magazine’s history. Shearer has won 175 national photography awards. His work has been exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MOMA and the Whitney Museum.

Reapers president Eddie Cuevas met with gang members, South Bronx, 1972.

John Shearer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

On a Bronx street were names important to the Reapers: Eddie, his girl friend Yvette, Con and Mr. Kool, the war lord and vice-president.

John Shearer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Eddie often complained about being hassled by police, but he got along well with the cop on the beat, and talked about wanting to become a policeman himself: “I’d rap to the fellows and take care of my people.”

John Shearer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Reapers gang members cleaned up their South Bronx neighborhood, 1972.

John Shearer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

With Javelins, nearby allies, Eddie discussed plans to clean up neighborhood.

John Shearer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Flanked by his warlord (wearing a hat), Eddie warned the president of a rival gang to leave Reaper members alone.

John Shearer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

In a city youth agency office that sometimes gave him funds, Eddie argued for money for trips out of the city: “I want my boys to see what the world’s about.”

John Shearer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A peace treaty among the gangs was violated by rivals. Under pressure to retaliate, Eddie instead went before a night meeting and asked for patience.

John Shearer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The Reapers street gang, New York, 1972.

John Shearer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

In an apartment building corridor, members of the Reapers administered their own swift and brutal justice to a junkie accused of having stolen a Reaper’s car.

John Shearer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Eddie and his fellow Reapers paid their respects to ‘Chino’ Rosa, a member of a neighboring gang who was knifed to death. Friends of Chino’s said he was held up and murdered by a junkie, but a grand jury decided that Chino’s assailant had been acting in self-defense. The Reapers donated a week’s dues to the bereaved family.

John Shearer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Eddie’s mother maintained a shrine to her husband in the four years since his death.

John Shearer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Reapers president Eddie Cuevas and his mother in their South Bronx apartment, 1972.

John Shearer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Eddie and Yvette had been going steady for four years: “When we get married,” he said with pride, “she’s going to wear a white dress.”

John Shearer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Eddie Cuevas, president of the Reapers street gang, peered out a window in the South Bronx, 1972.

John Shearer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Eddie Cuevas, president of the Reapers street gang, with his girlfriend Yvette, South Bronx, 1972.

John Shearer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Photographer Spotlight: John Dominis

November 3, 2020December 20, 2013 by

Some photographers become known for their mastery of a specialized topic, but John Dominis had the enviable ability to see and to capture anything.

Born in Los Angeles in 1921, Dominis was majoring in cinematography at USC when he left school in 1943 to enlist in the Air Force. After the war, he freelanced as a photographer for a number of national publications, including LIFE, and was put on staff in 1950 when he volunteered to cover the Korean War.

His 1965 photograph of Mickey Mantle tossing his helmet in disgust after a terrible at-bat is one of the most eloquent pictures ever made of a great athlete in decline and just to keep everyone guessing John Dominis also made some of the most memorable images of food ever to grace the pages of LIFE.

“The great thing about working with LIFE,” Dominis once said, “was that I was given all the support and money and time, whatever was required, to do almost any kind of work I wanted to do, anywhere in the world. It was like having a grant, a Guggenheim grant, but permanently.”

Dominis was remarkably candid about his work, and no more so than when discussing how he managed to make one of the most famous, and controversial, shots of his career: the bristling-with-energy picture of a leopard and a baboon facing off in what one immediately imagines rightly, as it turns out is a fight to the death.

In John Loengard’s terrific 1998 book, LIFE Photographers: What They Saw, Dominis says of that photo:

I certainly wasn’t a cat expert, but I could hire people who knew things. They’d lined up a hunter in Botswana, who was a hunter for zoos. He had caught a leopard, and he put the leopard in the back of the truck, and we went out into the desert. He would release the leopard, and most of the time the leopard would chase the baboons and they would run off and climb trees. I had photographed all this. But for some reason one baboon . . . turned and faced the leopard, and the leopard killed it. We didn’t know that this was going to happen. I just turned on the camera motor, and I got this terrific shot of this confrontation.

There was a different feeling about that in the 1960s. We were always setting up pictures. . . . But now there are many, many more competent photographers doing this stuff over long periods of time four or five years if a scientist is on a big study. . . . No one was working that way then. I felt that my job was to get the pictures. . . . We shot a gazelle and put it in a tree and waited for a cat to come. I didn’t feel bad about it at all. It sounds terrible now, I know, and maybe my attitude would be different now. . . . I’ve been criticized a lot. But to me, I had to do what I did.

His encounters with humans were (usually) less fraught, but always involved the same degree of preparation. Of his remarkable series of photos of Steve McQueen, and how he got the notoriously private and solitary actor to relax with a photographer around, Dominis told LIFE.com:

When I was living in Hong Kong I had a sports car and I raced it. And I knew that McQueen had a racing car. I rented one anticipating that we might do something with them. He was in a motorcycle race out in the desert, so I went out there in my car and met him, and I say, ‘You wanna try my car?’ We went pretty fast I mean, as fast as you can safely go without getting arrested and we’d ride and then stop and trade cars. He liked that, and I knew he liked it. I guess that was the first thing that softened him.

Then there’s Woodstock, an event that opened the eyes of a man who’d seen everything:

“I really had a great time,” Dominis told LIFE.com, decades after the fact. “I was much older than those kids, but I felt like I was their age. They smiled at me, offered me pot. . . . You didn’t expect to see a bunch of kids so nice; you’d think they’d be uninviting to an older person. But no they were just great!

“I worked at LIFE for 25 years, and worked everywhere and saw everything, and I’ve told people every year since the Woodstock festival that it was one of the greatest events I ever covered.”

Dominis became photo editor of People magazine in the mid-1970s and was an editor at Sports Illustrated for a few years, as well (1978 – 1982). But it was his work for LIFE in the 1950s, ’60s and into the early ’70s that not only defined his peripatetic career, but produced some of the most memorable and moving images of the 20th century. He died on Dec. 30, 2013, at his home in New York City, at the age of 92.

Liz Ronk edited this gallery for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LizabethRonk.

A Southern Pacific locomotive used a plow to clear snow from tracks in Donner Pass, five miles west of Soda Springs, Calif., 1949.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

An Army unit patrolled at night in Korea, 1951.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A rifleman dashed uphill to take cover from enemy fire, Korea, 1951.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

New York Giants star Willie Mays, 1954.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mothers grieved for their sons killed during a student demonstration, South Korea, 1960.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A boat girl rowed a sampan across the Perfume River, Vietnam, 1961.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mountain tribal village, Vietnam, 1961.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Navy air operations on the aircraft carrier Independence, 1961.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Dancer Jacques D’Amboise played with his children near his home in Washington state, 1962.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Robert Kennedy shook hands from a train window, Japan, 1962.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

President John F. Kennedy in the midst of a ticker tape parade during a state visit to Mexico, 1962.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Robert F. Kennedy with Japanese children, 1962.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Sen. Edward Kennedy (right) with an old friend, Jack Dixon, in his office during his first year in the Senate, 1963.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Steve McQueen took a break during a motorcycle race across the Mojave Desert, 1963.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Steve McQueen with his wife Neile at home in California, 1963.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Steve McQueen at home, 1963.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A trout “flew” out of a bed of almonds in preparation for Trout Amandine, 1964.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The Beatles, 1964.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mickey Mantle tossed his helmet in disgust after a terrible at-bat, New York, 1965.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Frank Sinatra in rehearsal, Las Vegas, 1965.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Outside the presidential suite at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas in 1965, Frank Sinatra said goodbye to his mother, Dolly (left), and his father, Martin (center). They visited from New Jersey during the winter months.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Muhammad Ali after his title defense against Sonny Liston (the “Phantom Punch” bout), Lewiston, Maine, 1965.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Argentinian matambre, a slice of beef rolled with vegetables and chilies, 1966.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A pair of lions in the wild in Africa, 1966.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A leopard about to kill a baboon, 1966.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

American sprinters Tommie Smith (center) and John Carlos (right), after winning gold and bronze Olympic medals in the 200 meters, respectively, raised their fists in a Black Power salute, Mexico, 1968. Australian silver medalist Peter Norman is at left.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Dustin Hoffman kissed his wife, Anne Byrne, in the back of a taxi, New York, 1969.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Woodstock Music and Art Fair, 1969.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

John Wayne during a break in the filming of The Undefeated, 1969.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

John Wayne during filming of The Undefeated, 1969.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Robert Redford exercised one of his eight saddle horses on his ranch in Utah, 1970.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The 90-meter ski jump at the 1972 Olympics in Japan.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Hitler’s Christmas Party

November 2, 2020December 1, 2013 by

The images are chilling, bordering on surreal: Surrounded by fellow Nazis, Adolf Hitler presides over a Christmas party. Swastika armbands jarringly offset the glint of ornaments and tinsel; candles illuminate the festive scene. Confronted with the scene, a viewer might reasonably ask: How could Nazi leaders reconcile an ideology of hatred, conquest and extermination with the joyous spirit of the holiday, much less its celebration of the birth of the Jewish Christ?

In 1937 Nazi propagandist Friedrich Rehm in 1937 actually argued that “real” Germans should remove any vestiges of “oriental” religion from the holiday by harking back to the pagan Yule, an ancient Northern European festival of the winter solstice. He said, “We cannot accept that a German Christmas tree has anything to do with a crib in a manger in Bethlehem. It is inconceivable for us that Christmas and all its deep soulful content is the product of an oriental religion.” An eye-opening 2009 exhibit at Cologne’s National Socialism Documentation Centre featured early Nazi propaganda attempts to make over the holiday: swastika-shaped cookie-cutters; sunburst tree-toppers to replace the traditional ornament Nazis feared looked too much like the Star of David; rewritten lyrics to carols that excised all references to Christ.

But by the time Hitler, Mussolini and the Japanese had dragged the Allies into the Second World War, the Reich’s focus had shifted to more practical matters. Rather than trying to dissuade millions of Germans from celebrating Christmas the way they had for generations, Hitler, Goebbels and the rest instead encouraged their compatriots to send cards and care packages to the troops.

As for the religious views of Hitler himself, the evidence is hardly conclusive: In public statements he sometimes praised Christianity (once calling it “the foundation of our national morality”), but in private conversations—including one recalled by the Third Reich’s official architect, Albert Speer—the Führer is said to have abhorred the faith for what he deemed its “meekness and flabbiness.”

Hitler did, of course, fervently worship one thing above all else: the so-called Aryan race. Looking at the utterly banal, ordinary faces and figures in these photographs, however, it’s hard to believe that anyone, no matter how fanatical or deluded, could believe that the men at that long-ago holiday party comprised anything more than a roomful of gangsters and common thugs.

Scene from a Christmas party attended by Adolf Hitler and other Nazis, date unknown.

Hugo Jaeger The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Christmas Wishes: Photos of Kids on the Phone With Santa, 1947

December 9, 2020December 1, 2013 by

This little girl is talking to Santa Claus, and so may any other girl or boy who telephones Murray Hill 8-2205 in New York between now and Christmas.

Thus reads a photo caption in a December 15, 1947 LIFE magazine story about some holiday subterfuge devised by the famed New York toy store, FAO Schwarz. The clever gambit involved an FAO-produced phone system on which children could dial that number (MU8-2205) and speak directly to Santa himself, laying out their wishes for the holiday: world peace, universal human fellowship, a train set, a bunny, a briefcase.

Here, LIFE.com presents photos by Martha Holmes from that article as well as some other “Awww”-inspiring pictures that never ran in the magazine.

Calling Santa, 1947

Martha Holmes / The LIFE Picture Collection

Calling Santa, 1947

Caption from LIFE: “Patricia Guinan promises to leave out milk and crackers for Santa Claus on Christmas Eve, 1947.” (Martha Holmes / The LIFE Picture Collection)

Calling Santa, 1947

Caption from LIFE: “Bann Kernan, who is 7 years old, squirms with delight as she asks Santa for a wrist watch. Moments later she gave the phone to her younger brother, Bennie, 5, who requested a train.” (Martha Holmes / The LIFE Picture Collection)

Calling Santa, 1947

Caption from LIFE: “Jo Ann Ward began with aplomb by saying, ‘Hello, Santa Claus. How you feel?'” The three-year-old wanted a doll and a boat.” (Martha Holmes / The LIFE Picture Collection)

Calling Santa, 1947

Caption from LIFE: “‘After making sure he could not hear and be disillusioned,’ Bann Kernan ‘whispered confidingly to the LIFE researcher’ that there is “no Santa Claus,” while brother Bennie remained blissfully unaware.'” (Martha Holmes / The LIFE Picture Collection)

Calling Santa, 1947

Caption from LIFE: “Elaine Jung is 6, wants a doll’s house and carriage, also asked Santa to be sure not to forget her baby sister.” (Martha Holmes / The LIFE Picture Collection)

Calling Santa, 1947

Caption from LIFE: “Jimmy O’Brien, 4, asked for a bike and a sailboat. When Santa asked where he lived, he said, ‘You know where.'” (Martha Holmes / The LIFE Picture Collection)

Calling Santa, 1947

Caption from LIFE: “Christopher Lange, the son of Poland’s U.N. delegate Oscar Lange is nearly 8 years old and a firm believer in Santa Claus. He showed his official background by requesting the badge of the profession, a briefcase, for Christmas. (He also asked for a paint set.)” (Martha Holmes / The LIFE Picture Collection)

Calling Santa, 1947

Martha Holmes / The LIFE Picture Collection

F.A.O. Schwarz, 1947

Caption from LIFE: “Santa Himself and Mrs. Claus, who sometimes wear red coats to keep in character, answer calls at the Schwarz workshop.” (Martha Holmes / The LIFE Picture Collection)

F.A.O. Schwarz, 1947

Caption from LIFE: “Schwarz’s President, Philip Kirkham, used to play Santa for the benefit of special customers’ children by shouting good cheer up a dumbwaiter shaft.” The first time he did it, employees thought he was ‘a little daft.'” (Martha Holmes / The LIFE Picture Collection)

Calling Santa, 1947

Martha Holmes/ The LIFE Picture Collection

Calling Santa, 1947

Caption from LIFE: “Bann Kernan, 7, calls Santa.” (Martha Holmes / The LIFE Picture Collection)

Calling Santa, 1947

Martha Holmes / The LIFE Picture Collection

More Like This

history

The First Super Bowl: The Game That Started It All

Photos from New Year’s Eve in New York as America Joined the War

Gang of New York: LIFE With the Reapers, 1972

Photographer Spotlight: John Dominis

Hitler’s Christmas Party

Christmas Wishes: Photos of Kids on the Phone With Santa, 1947

A Healing Return: Marlene Dietrich Goes Back to Germany, 1960

Mysterious Italy: The Mummies of Venzone

“Robot Planes”: When the U.S. Military Unveiled Its First Drones

The Logging Life: Gone Down the River

“Degrading to Minority and Majority Alike”: The Fight to Vote, 1960

Seeking Warmth During an Iceland Deployment

More Like This

Subscribe to the LIFE Newsletter