Page 23 – LIFE

Factory Chic: Overhauling the Overalls

March 9, 2023March 9, 2023 by Bill Syken

In April 1953 about 16 million Americans worked in manufacturing jobs—many more than today, where the number is about 11 million. And roughly a quarter of those workers back then were women.

Enter noted designer Tina Leser, who debuted a fashion line that year for the burgeoning female lunchpail set.

In a story titled “Overhauled Overalls” in its April 13, 1953 issue, LIFE broke down the new look and also the logic behind it:

What to wear to work is not a matter of much choice to the 4.5 million women in U.S. factories. Many work near moving machinery or poisonous dusts and acids, and must wear coveralls, made for safety and comfort but seldom for style. Now designer Tina Leser, who usually concerns herself with how to look elegant at expensive resorts, has taken up the problem of how to look snappy at a workbench. In a group of clothes called Fashion for Industry released in stores this week, Miss Leser presents her solutions. The standard, safe—but usually shapeless—factory coverall appears in practical but neatly fitted and attractive versions…Some designs have pants legs narrowed so that they can be pushed up and hidden under a skirt on the way to work.

The photos for the article, taken by Yale Joel, tell a story not just of a clothing line but of women’s increased prominence in the workforce, with the fashion world looking to address needs beyond the social and domestic realms. Some of the photos were set in the Long Island, N.Y. factory of cosmetics magnate Helena Rubinstein, who is herself a fascinating tale of female entrepreneurship.

The article’s closing line proposed one more feminine touch for the factory: “Miss Leser suggests that instead of the standard tin lunchbox a stylish imported straw basket.”

This Orlon coverall, which retailed for $16.95 with turban, was modeled in the Long Islamd factory of Helena Robenstein’s makeup company, 1953.

Yale Joel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Tina Leser’s factory fashions, 1953.

Yale Joel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

This outfit, modelled at Fairchild Aircraft, had an elastic belt and a pocket for tools, which LIFE said made it perfect for sailing and gardening as well as the factory, 1953.

Yale Joel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Tina Leser’s factory fashions, 1953.

Yale Joel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

This model’s factory pants were pushed up under her skirt when it was time to clock out, 1953.

Yale Joel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

These coveralls, examples of Tina Leser’s factory chic line, retailed for $7 to $10, 1953.

Yale Joel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Tina Leser’s factory fashions, 1953.

Yale Joel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Female Jockeys Who Broke Down Barriers

March 7, 2023March 7, 2023 by Bill Syken

In 2022 more than a quarter of all jockeys—27.2 percent—were female. That is only true because of the pioneering women of the late 1960s who fought for the right to compete.

In its Dec. 13, 1968 issue LIFE wrote about Penny Ann Early and her battle to break the gender barrier in horse racing. At age 25 she was one of the first women to become a licensed jockey in the U.S. (The first was 1968 Olympic equestrian star Kathryn Kusner, who sued for that right but then suffered a broken leg before she could attempt to race). Early’s battle to get on the track was chronicled for LIFE by photographer Bob Gomel.

When Penny Ann Early attempted to compete at Churchill Downs, male jockeys were so opposed that they boycotted the races she was set to appear in. One male jockey cast the boycott as defending his livelihood. “If you let one woman ride one race, we are all dead,” he told LIFE.

Early told LIFE, “I have nothing against men. Next to horses I like men best. All I want is a chance to race against them. Is that so bad?”

Apparently it was. That issue of LIFE included a startlingly brazen guest editorial from Hall of Fame jockey Bill Hartack. He acknowledged that women had a legal right to ride and criticized the boycotts of Early as a misguided tactic. But Hartack also predicted that once women had the chance to compete, they would fail.

Hartack wrote:

“They’ll find out how tough it is and they’ll give it up. The tracks won’t have to worry about being flooded with women because a female cannot compete against a male doing anything….They might weigh the same as male jockeys, but they aren’t as strong. And as a group, I don’t think their brains are as capable of making fast decisions. Women are also more likely to panic. It’s their nature.”

Hartrack also dreamed up a scenario where women might use sex to get male jockeys to take it easy on them in a race. “If she was sharp enough I might take advantage of the situation myself,” Hartack wrote. “I wouldn’t ease up in the race, but I wouldn’t put it past me to con her into thinking that I would.”

While Early was ultimately unsuccessful in her attempts to break the gender barrier at the track, she did compete against men in another professional sport: basketball. Her battles at Churchill Downs caught the attention of the Kentucky Colonels of the fledging American Basketball Association, and the Colonels signed her to a one-day contract. She checked into a game long enough to receive an inbounds pass while wearing a sweater with the number 3, representing the number of times that male jockeys had boycotted her races.

But it didn’t take long until the gender barrier was broken—by Diane Crump, racing at another track. On February 7, 1969, became the first women to compete in a pari-mutuel race, at Hialeah Park Race Track in Florida, with LIFE photographer George Silk on hand. Her appearance was controversial enough that she needed police protection from the crowd before the race.

Crump finished ninth at Hialeah. Two weeks later she won her first race, and in 1970 she competed in the Kentucky Derby. And she and Early helped clear the path for other groundbreaking jockeys such as Julie Krone, who in 1993 became the first woman to win a Triple Crown race, atop Colonial Affair in the Belmont Stakes.

In an interview with CNN in 2012, Crump modestly said, “I like to think I was a little inroad on the path to equality.”

Jockey Penny Ann Early with her horse Randy in Louisville, Kentucky, 1968.

Bob Gomel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Penny Ann Early, whose attempts to become to first female competitive jockey were met with boycotts, 1968.

Bob Gomel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Diane Crump, the first female jockey to compete in a pari-mutuel race, Hialeah, Florida, 1969.

George Silk/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Diane Crump, the first female jockey to compete against men, Hialeah, Florida, 1969.

George Silk/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Diane Crump readies to become the first female jockey to race against men, Hialeah, Florida, 1969

George Silk/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Diane Crump races against men for the first time in Hialeah, Florida, 1969.

George Silk/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Too Close for Comfort? LIFE’s Look at Short Hair

March 2, 2023March 2, 2023 by Bill Syken

For a long time, dating back to at least to the ancient Greeks and Romans, cultures have insisted that women should have longer hair than men.

So when LIFE look up the topic of short hair on women in its July 19, 1954 issue, the magazine moved with caution—likely too much for the modern reader. LIFE’s story acknowledged the trend, even as it took pains to not endorse it.

LIFE wrote:

What is probably the nadir of the short haircut has been reached by shorn young women who are trying out the male butch haircut for hot weather. Although the style can look feminine on young wearers and is convenient for such midsummer pleasures as swimming and driving in open cars, it has dismayed many males. They will be heartened by the word out of Paris that the long glamor girl bob is coming back for fall.

The text, from a story which carried the pejorative headline “Feminine Butch,” betrays the anxiety of a Barbie-and-Ken age. It is also telling that this shoot illustrating a story on women’s hairstyles gave unusual prominence to men. In a couple cases, the models were actually photographed with their husbands.

But seven decades later, even after societal standards have loosened, after beauty icons ranging from Twiggy to Scarlett Johansson have rocked the short look, and after millions of women have deployed the hashtag #shorthairdontcare, a haircut can still provoke an inordinate amount of hand-wringing. This 2022 story agonizes over all the deeper meanings that get attached to short hair, touching on such issues as femininity, age, power, career aspirations and what a haircut says about one’s emotional state.

And it’s worth recognizing that however disdainful the tone of the words in LIFE article, the pictures that accompanied it, taken by Nina Leen, tell a story of their own, especially the shots of model Jackie Dunne and her husband together in a restaurant. Those photos have the quality of a movie still, capturing not just a look but a relationship. “Unlike the majority of men, he has decided he likes it fine,” LIFE wrote of the pictures in which Mr. Dunne stares at his wife’s newly-cropped hair.

Meanwhile, Jackie’s gaze is elsewhere. She is not looking at her husband at all.

A barber delivers a touch-up trim, New York, 1954.

Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shuttertstock

Short hair fashion, 1954.

Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Short hair fashion, 1954.

Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shuttertstock

The shortly cropped hairstyle that LIFE dubbed “Feminine Butch,” 1954.

Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shuttertstock

Model Jackie Dunne with her husband after getting her new short haircut. “Unlike the majority of men, he has decided he likes it fine,” LIFE said.

Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shuttertstock

Short hair fashion, 1954.

Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Meet the Real Women Who Inspired A League of Their Own

March 1, 2023March 1, 2023 by

When Philip K. Wrigley spearheaded the effort to remedy professional baseball’s wartime decline with a women’s league, one question dogged the league’s founders: what, exactly, to call it. It wasn’t technically softball. The ball was smaller, the bases farther apart and stealing bases forbidden in softball was permitted. But it wasn’t baseball, either: the ball was larger and the bases, closer. They settled on a compromise: The All-American Girls Professional Ball League.

The league that would later inspire the 1992 movie A League of Their Own and the enduring exclamation, “There’s no crying in baseball!” had just kicked off its third season when LIFE featured it in a photo essay in 1945. The six teams, all based in the Midwest, were comprised of nearly 100 women between the ages of 16 and 27 who played for $50 to $85 per week. Eight were married and three had children. Nearly half a million spectators were expected to turn out over the course of that season, shelling out $0.74 for a seat to watch the Rockford Peaches face the South Bend Blue Sox and the Grand Rapid Chicks take on the Racine Belles.

As exciting as it was to watch women slide and steal and scuff their knees, the league was a product of its time, and its strict rules of conduct reflected this. As LIFE reported in its story, “League rules establish she must always wear feminine attire, cannot smoke or drink in public, cannot have dates except with “old friends” and then only with the approval of the ever-present team chaperone.”

But as demure as the players may have been off the field, they were serious athletes as soon as the first pitch was thrown. Blue Sox Catcher Mary “Bonnie” Baker could throw 345 feet. Lefty pitcher Annabelle Lee threw a perfect game. And Sophie Kurys stole 1,114 bases during her ten-year career. The appeal of players” athleticism kept the league going for more than a decade, with attendance peaking in the late 1940s at 910,000 fans. But the league’s decentralization, a dearth of qualified players and the rise of televised major league games eventually led to its demise, with players retiring their gloves after the close of the 1954 season.

Liz Ronk, who edited this gallery, is the Photo Editor for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LizabethRonk.

Catcher May “Bonnie” Baker of the South Bend Blue Sox, 1945; she had five brothers, four sisters, all of them catchers on Canadian ball teams.

Wallace Kirkland The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Pitcher Carolyn Morris of Rockford Peaches, 1945.

Wallace Kirkland The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Outfielder Faye Dancer, Fort Wayne Daisies, All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, 1945. She served as an adviser for the 1992 movie A League of Their Own and was a model for Geena Davis’ character.

Wallace Kirkland The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Pitcher Annabelle Lee, Fort Wayne Daisies southpaw, of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Her nephew, Bill Lee of Major League Baseball, credited her with teaching him how to pitch.

Wallace Kirkland The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The All-American Girls Professional Bsaeball League, 1945

Wallace Kirkland The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, 1945.

Wallace Kirkland The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Anastasia Batikis, a Racine Belles’ outfielder, in action in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball Laegue, 1945.

Wallace Kirkland The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Penny O’Brian, Fort Wayne Daisies rookie infielder in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, 1945.

Wallace Kirkland The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Faye Dancer of the Fort Wayne Daisies paid the price for sliding while wearing a league-mandated skirt in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, 1945.

Wallace Kirkland The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Gear from the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, 1945.

Wallace Kirkland The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Members from all six teams in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League posed for a group portrait, 1945.

Wallace Kirkland The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Seriously, Check Out This Porcupine: A Lending Library for Animals

February 21, 2023February 21, 2023 by Bill Syken

A library that lets you check out animals?

It sounds like a fanciful idea, perhaps a premise for a children’s book. But in Sacramento in the 1950s, there was a place where kids could actually check out animals and take them home.

The service was run out of the California Junior Museum, which was located on the state fairgrounds. The museum had exhibits which taught young people about the natural world (this quaint film strip documents a field trip there), and one if its programs was a lending library for living creatures. LIFE photographer Carl Mydans, whose portfolio includes many brutal scenes of war, was there to document the cuteness.

Here’s how the library worked, according to the story in the July 14, 1952 issue of LIFE:

Children who visit the California Junior Museum can, if they are at least seven years old and have their parents’ permission, take home rats, rabbits, squirrels, or in special cases, a skunk or a porcupine. Designed to give children first-hand information about U.S. wildlife, the lending library has 40 animals which circulate about the rate of 20 a week….animals may be kept out for a week, and there is a ten-cent fine for overdue animals.

And yes, you read correctly: that list of animals available for borrowing did include a rat. The closing anecdote of the LIFE story was actually about a white rat who had been kept out past her due date:

One boy did keep a white rat past the limit, but he was excused from the fine. At the time that the rat was due back it was in the boy’s living room—busily giving birth to a litter of eight in the pop-eyed presence of every child in the neighborhood.

Sounds like quite the education.

Animal lending library In Sacramento, 1952.

Carl Mydans/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Animal Lending Library In Sacramento, 1952.

Carl Mydans/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Animal borrowers clustered around the librarian who checked applications and parents’ permission slips for lending pets, Sacramento, California, 1952.

Carl Mydans/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Animal lending library In Sacramento, 1952.

Carl Mydans/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

From a story on an animal lending library in Sacramento, 1952.

Carl Mydans/LIfe Picture Collection/Shutterstock

From a story on an animal lending library In Sacramento, 1952.

Carl Mydans/LIfe Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Youngsters on their way home from an animal lending library in Sacramento, 1952.

Carl Mydans/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

From a story on an animal lending library in Sacramento, 1952.

Carl Mydans/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dirk Schwartz fed Pogie the porcupine with an ear of corn, shot for a story on a California animal lending library, 1952.

Carl Mydans/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The animal lending library lent this rabbit to a kindergarten class, Sacramento, 1952.

Carl Mydans/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A little boy holding his new pet snake.

Carl Mydans/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A youngster with the white rat he borrowed from the animal lending library in Sacramento, California, 1952.

Carl Mydans/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Skunks like this one were available for checkout from the animal lending library in Sacramento, California, 1952.

Carl Mydans/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Derek Leigh checked out this skunk from the animal lending library; the skunk had its glands removed to avoid the spray of odor, Sacramento, California, 1952.

Carl Mydans/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Former G.I.s Let Their Hair Down in Postwar Paris, 1949

February 21, 2023February 21, 2023 by Bill Syken

The Aug. 22, 1949 issue of LIFE contained one of its more iconic stories, on the vanishing American cowboy. Among the captivated readers of that story was an ad executive who would use it as inspiration for the Marlboro man.

Readers who continued turning the pages of that issue also found LIFE exploring a different kind of archetype: the American expatriate in Paris. That archetype gained currency in the 1920s, and was immortalized by Ernest Hemingway in his memoir A Moveable Feast. But following World War II, the Americans flocking to Paris were of a different breed. Many of “The New Expatriates,” as LIFE called them, were veterans of World War II who were studying abroad under the GI Bill.

LIFE wrote:

The dream remains on the Left Bank of the Seine, where today several thousand Americans, including several hundred students taking advantage of the educational grants provided by the GI Bill of Rights, walk the old streets. The ex-GIs, living on government checks, are a far cry from the expatriate generation of the ’20s, which supported itself chiefly by taking advantage of the favorable exchange between dollars and francs.

According to the LIFE story, which was written by Paris bureau chief John Stanton, many of this new wave of Americans had come there to learn the trades that were the specialty of the French. He described “10 former hulking combat infantry” who were students at Le Cordon Bleu cooking school. Another 60 students were learning clothing design—”and some are even getting jobs at top houses here.” Many others, rather than learning a specific trade, were taking traditional academic courses at the Sorbonne.

And their life in Paris, while romantic and soulful in appearance, also had a hardscrabble element. The GI Bill afforded veterans $75 a month (about $920 in 2023 dollars). So the students lived in walk-up apartments or other modest accommodations and frequented only the most inexpensive cafes and clubs.

But whatever budget these expatriates were living on, they had each other. It is the companionship that shines through in the photos of Dmitri Kessel. These soldiers were recapturing the camaraderie of military life, now finding it in classrooms and cafes. And that is what gives these images of postwar Paris their depth of feeling. It’s not just where these veterans are, but the understanding of where they had been.

Former newspaper cartoonist Robert Bizinsky, who during World War II served in Northern Africa, in 1949 had been living in Paris for two years and working on his painting.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Young Americans having a drink on terrace of Cafe de Flore on the Left Bank in Paris, 1949.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

In his Paris garret, Howard Simpson (left) painted while Hill Hazelip watched, 1949; the room was a sixth-floor walkup that rented for $10 a month.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Young Americans at a Parisian nightclub, 1949.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Former GIs Danford Goldman (left) and Don Bartley studied at the Guerre-Lavigne fashion school in Paris, 1949.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Students William Pilson and Lewis Friedman, with others, draping material and sewing at the Guerre Lavigne’s school of fashion, 1949.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Artist Joseph Eula from New York sketched on a rented houseboat moored in the Seine, 1949.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Jane Lewis, Ethel Staff and Elly McAndrews came from New York to work as models in Paris, 1949.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A cooking school, Paris, 1949, photographed for a LIFE story on American veterans living abroad after World War II.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

American student Hill Hazelip and others listened to jazz at an inexpensive Paris club, 1949.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Young American models sipped drinks at sidewalk cafe, Paris, 1949.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

American Elly McAndrews, Paris, 1949.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Hill Hazelip, 21, Paris, 1949.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Model Jane Lewis, Paris, 1949.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Paris, 1949.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Composer William Gilligan playing piano, Paris, 1949.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Composer William Finnigan and his wife and dog, visiting with a guest at their home, Paris, 1949.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sculptor Shinkichi Tajiri, Paris, 1949.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

American working models taking a stroll in Paris, 1949.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

American sculptors George Spanenta and Sydney Geist in Paris, 1949.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Franc De George singing for the crowd in a Paris bar, 1949.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

American students drinking, talking, and listening to music, Paris, 1949.

Dmitri Kessel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

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