As protests go, no one would mistake this one for the March on Washington, the marches in Selma, the marches for gay rights march, the labor strikes led by Cesar Chavez, or any of the other important social actions covered by LIFE magazine.
But what the model protest covered by LIFEs Wallace Kirkland in 1946 lacked in social significance, it made up for in novelty value. The pictures have a silliness that makes them play like stills from a 1940s version of Zoolander.
The object of the protest was Coronet, a general interest magazine that published from 1936 to 1971. The models were protesting because Coronet was switching from using models on the cover (as it did, for example, in this issue from 1941) to illustrations that were more in the Normal Rockwell vein (see this cover from 1952).
Most of Kirkland’s photos show the six protesters in their black dresses marching outside the magazine’s Chicago office, carrying signs with slogans such as “Coronet Unfair to Cover Girls” and “David Smart is a Meanie!” Smart, also the co-founder of pioneering men’s magazine Esquire, was the publisher of Coronet. The photos show the models eventually leaving the sidewalk and making their way into Smart’s office for a confrontation so unserious-looking that he seems to have appreciated the stunt as much as anybody.
In 1969 LIFE photographer Yale Joel set out to document men’s hairstyles, and the result is this glorious cache of photos. His story never ran in the magazine (one imagines the legendary photographer having a conversation with the magazine editors in which they say “Uh, Yale, these are cool, but we’re kind of busy with the moon landing and Woodstock and the war in Vietnam and the Charles Manson killings and all that.”)
But all these decades down the road, these photos of men’s hairstyles are their own window into that wild era. It’s as if the hair was an externalization of a world gone wild, where nothing was neat or simple.
Because this story never ran, we don’t much about these men that Yale Joel photographed, although the rich variety of faces suggests that he was taking pictures of ordinary people rather than male models. There’s even some question of whether all of this hair is real. A few of the photos were taken in a salon where wigs are visible in the background, and one photo is of a woman wearing a glued-on mustache.
The ambiguity fits the era too. It was a time to question everything.
The Dec. 1, 1952 issue of LIFE featured clothing meant to trick the eye, at least for a moment.
The dresses, from the storied French house Hermes, featured designs in the trompe l’oeil style. The dresses had come out the previous year in Europe and “were soon fooling eyes and causing conversations at France’s fashionable resorts,” LIFE wrote. In 1952 the dresses came to America via the shop of dressmaker Herbert Sondheim (who happens to be the father of composer Stephen Sondheim).
“Everything in the dresses is an illusion—pockets, collars, buttons are all printed on in carefully haphazard strokes; only the seams are real,” LIFE wrote. “Each master design is spaced out, then reproduced on fabric by a complicated screen printing process.”
The story featured pictures by Gordon Parks, and it’s no mystery why a photographer might be intrigued by fashion that was built on surface illusion. But the magazine, despite devoting several pages to the story, was stinting in its praise, calling the clothing “eye-catching but not functional.”
Indeed, given that a common complaint about women’s clothes is the lack of pockets, painting fake pockets onto dresses is borderline cruel.
A woman models a Hermes trompe-l’oeil raincoat in Paris. The decorations painted directly on the fabric included buttons, pockets and a hood on the back.
Gordon Parks/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A model showed off a Hermes raincoat in the trompe l’oiel style with a painted hood on the back that sold for about $100 in Paris, 1952.
Gordon Parks/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Hermes’ trompe l’oiel dresses, 1952.
Gordon Parks/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Hermes’ trompe l’oiel dresses, 1952.
Gordon Parks/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A belt that was part of the line of Hermes’ trompe l’oiel fashion, 1952.
Gordon Parks/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
This Hermes trompe l’oiel dress sold for $29.95 in 1952 (the equivalent of about $340 in 2023).
Gordon Parks/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Hermes’ trompe l’oiel dresses, 1952.
Gordon Parks/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Hermes’ trompe l’oiel dresses, 1952.
Gordon Parks/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
This dress with a painted-on tie in the trompe l’oiel style sold for $39.95 in 1952.
Gordon Parks/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Hermes’ trompe l’oiel dresses, 1952.
Gordon Parks/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A model held the material that, when cut and sewn along the sides, would become a dress in Hermes’ trompe l’oliel line, 1952.
In 1967 LIFE photographer Co Rentmeester connected with a unit of American paratroopers as they made the first combat jumps of the Vietnam war.
The use of paratroopers was part of the incremental escalation that defined the war in Vietnam, and they were deployed in service of America’s biggest military operation to that point. But what makes this set of Rentmeester’s photos stand out is the intimacy and intensity of his paratrooper portraits, which resonate beyond their moment in history.
The operation was important enough that it made the cover of LIFE’s March 10, 1967 issue, with a photo of a silhouetted paratrooper leaping from the plane and the headline “Battle Jump: New Tactics Step Up the War.” Rentmeester’s photos capture the daring of the Second Battalion of the 503rd Airborne Infantry Regiment as soldiers descended on Vietnam’s dried-up rice paddies during Operation Junction City. The operation was multidivisional assault on the suspected location of the enemy headquarters.
The story’s opening spread featured close-up photos of two soldiers on their way to the jump: one who had never done anything like this before and one who who knew the routine all too well. Baby-faced 19-year-old Pfc. Helmut Schmuck sat wide-eyed on the plane as he anticipated making his first combat jump ever. Then there was Sergeant First Class Leon Hostak, who had been a paratrooper during the Korean War and now was a leader of the young charges. According to LIFE’s story, when it came time to jump, Hostak “was practically throwing his troopers out of the plane.”
The story’s text, by Don Moser, described the mix of excitement and dread that preceded the jump:
Pfc. William D. Kuhl was bubbling with the excitement of it all. “My mother is going to be prouder of me than I am of myself,” he was saying. “Then he laughed and started to sing the paratroopers’ song. “Gory, gory, what a helluva way to die,” he bellowed, but the rest just got quiet and curled up inside themselves.
All 800 paratroopers landed safely (including Kuhl, who snapped a photo on the way down for LIFE), despite encountering some initial sniper fire. But the mission itself was an anticlimax. The troops searched for a week before making major contact with enemy soldiers and “mostly pursued elusive shadows through the jungle,” LIFE reported. Both sides suffered casualties, and the soldiers did not find the headquarters they sought.
The last words of the story, attributed to an unnamed and frustrated planner of the mission, were “It’s a damned rough game.”
U.S. paratroopers in Vietnam, on their way to their first jump of the war, 1967.
Co Rentmeester/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Pfc. Helmut Schmuck, 19. a paratrooper of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, prepared for his first jump in combat, Vietnam, 1967.
Leon Hostak, a Sergeant First Class who had served as a paratrooper in 1951 during the Korean War, was back in action in Vietnam, 1967.
Co Rentmeester/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The back of the helmet of American helicopter pilot John Rion had a sticker that depicted the ‘Peanuts’ comicstrip character Snoopy, Vietnam, 1967.
Co Rentmeester/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
In the first US combat parachute assault since the Korean War. paratroopers of the 2nd Battalion, 503rd Airborne Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade descended on South Vietnam, February 22, 1967.
Co Rentmeester/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
An American paratrooper of the 2nd Battalion, 503rd Airborne Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade, jumped out of a C-130 plane and into a war zone in South Vietnam, February 22, 1967.
Co Rentmeester/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
In the first US combat parachute assault since the Korean War. paratroopers of the 2nd Battalion, 503rd Airborne Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade descend on jSouth Vietnam, February 22, 1967.
Co Rentmeester/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A photo taken by Pfc. Wiliam Kuhl of the 2nd Battalion, 503rd Airborne Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade during the first paratrooper jump of the Vietnam War, February 22, 1967.
Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Paratroopers of the 2nd Battalion, 503rd Airborne Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade, on a mission in Vietnam, 1967.
Co Rentmeester/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Soldiers of the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry, 1st Infantry Division set up a tarp next to a howitzer for Operation Junction City during the Vietnam war, February 1967. A CH-47 Chinook helicopter is in flight
The Second Battalion, 503rd Airborne Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade, Vietnam, 1967.
Co Rentmeester/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The Second Battalion, 503rd Airborne Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade, Vietnam, 1967.
Co Rentmeester/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Paratroopers of the 2nd Battalion, 503rd Airborne Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade, wade through a stream in South Vietnam, February 22, 1967.
Co Rentmeester/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
US soldiers of the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry, 1st Division, aimed an M60 machine gun out of a foxhole during Operation Junction City in the Vietnam war, February 1967.
Co Rentmeester/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
From front left: Specialist 4th class Raymond Hill, team leader Sergeant Reed Cundiff, and Specialist 4th class Manuel Moya, Vietnam, 1967.
Co Rentmeester/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A reconnaissance patrol In Vietnam during Operation Junction City, 1967.
Co Rentmeester/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Manuel Moya (left) and Reed Cundiff of a U.S. Army Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol of the 173rd Airborne, South Vietnam, February 1967.
Co Rentmeester/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Portrait of Manuel Moya of a US Army Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol (LRRP) of the 173rd Airborne as he sat, in camouflage, in a helicopter, Vietnam, February 1967.
Co Rentmeester/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
In 1946 LIFE magazine went to the North Shore of Long Island to peep in on the lives, and the beautiful homes, of the ultra-rich. The Gold Coast, as the most exclusive stretch is known, was a place where many homes were more rightly called estates, and where lunch guests might be served by a butler who spoke three languages. Polo was a popular pastime, as was sailing, and even flying. One country club had an airplane hangar for the 25 members who kept planes there.
This rarefied playground was beautifully photographed by Nina Leen for an 11-page story in the July 22, 1946 issue of LIFE. The magazine called the North Shore “the most socially desirable residential area in the U.S.” and claimed that “nowhere else in such costly profusion can be found such great, handsome and scrupulously tended estates as those on the North Shore.”
The luminaries of the North Shore included the Astors, the Vanderbilts, the Whitneys, J.P. Morgan and F.W. Woolworth, among others. But despite the wealth of its residents and the grandeur of their estates, the magazine described the lifestyle there as “ordered, gracious, and, amid great luxury, basically simple.” The view of the North Shore in LIFE was unabashedly admiring, with the only question being, Could this paradise last?
They live with the unpretentious ease of a well-entrenched money class, busy with sports, hobbies and charities, surrounded by yachting trophies, etchings of dogs, silver mugs won on polo fields and portraits painted by fashionable artists. Their North Shore domain is assailed by the breakup of the very biggest estates and by encroachment along the edges by middle-class suburbia. Nevertheless the North Shore residents have just survived the heaviest taxation in their history and as long as they continue prudently to preserve their fortunes by frequent intermarriage, their handsome way of life seems likely to persist.
All these years later the Gold Coast is still a place of stature, but it is not unchanged. The Long Island Aviation Club of Long Island is no more, fading out in 1948. The Phipps residence, seen in the photos here, has been converted in a museum, Old Westbury Gardens, and it is one of many of the old estates to transition from private haven to public usage. The former home of William Robertson Coe, who was both a business titan and a noted horticulturist (Nina Leen photographed Coe inspecting the orchids in his greenhouse), is now part of Planting Fields Arboretum State Historic Park.
The magic of the Gold Coast at its peak is most famously memorialized in The Great Gatsby. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s definitive portrait of aspiration in America takes place in fictionalized towns on the North Shore. Today you can still take a Gatsby Tour of the area’s historic mansions, and enjoy your views of these former castles.
The Piping Rock Club in Locust Valley on the North Shore of Long Island, N.Y., 1946.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Golfers at a country club on Long Island’s North Shore, 1946.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Thomas Bradley and his wife played golf at a country club on Long Island’s North Shore, 1946.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The Aviation Country Club in Hicksville, Long Island featured a hangar which housed 25 planes belonging to members and four other aircraft reserved for members who did not have their own, 1946.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The North Shore of Long Island, N.Y., 1946.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club, North Shore, Long Island, N.Y., 1946.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Men lined up their sailboats at the starting line at the Seawanhaka yacht club, Long Island’s North Shore, 1946.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Sunbathers at a country club on Long Island’s North Shore, 1946.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
North Shore, Long Island, N.Y., 1946.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Dean of the North Shore, horsey set, F. Ambrose Clark, 1946.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Polo player Stewart Iglehart, Long Island’s North Shore, 1946.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Michael Phipps (right) talking to a fellow polo player, Long Island’s North Shore, 1946.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Michael Grace Phipps, a polo player, outside the Meadow Brook Club in Westbury, Long Island, 1946.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The gates to the estate of John Phipps, son of the partner of Andrew Carnegie, on the North Shore of Long Island, N.Y., 1946.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Wendy McCrary relaxed in La Granja, the art-filled North Shore home of her parents, 1946; her father, D.S. Iglehart, ran the Grace shipping line.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Edgar Leonard (right) and his wife (center) hosted a luncheon at their home, with their longtime butlers, identified by LIFE with only their last names Smith and Froggart, and a note that Smith spoke three languages, North Shore, Long Island, N.Y., 1946.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The boxwood gardens at the Ogden L. Mills estate, North Shore, Long Island, N.Y., 1946.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The Ogden L. Mills estate on the North Shore of Long Island, N.Y., 1946.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney raised black Angus cattle on his 600-acre estate in Old Westbury, Long Island, N.Y., 1946.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, nee Eleanor Searle, at the reins of a horse buggy while her footman rode in the back, North Shore, Long Island, N.Y., 1946.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The North Shore of Long Island, N.Y., 1946.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
W.R. Coe looking over the orchids in his greenhouse with his estate superintendent on the North Shore of Long Island, N.Y., 1946.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The front gated entrance to W.R. Coe’s estate; the gates were built in Sussex, England in 1720 and bought by Coe in 1921 from Lord Wittenham in 1921.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The estate of W.R. Coe, an insurance, railroad and business executive, 1946; the home today is a museum and part of the Planting Fields Arboretum State Historic Park in Oyster Bay, N.Y..
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The playhouse of the Webb home in Westbury included a pool and mural of the North Shore scenery, 1946.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Harry Webb plays indoor tennis on a court decorated with Native American carved wooden figures from his mother’s collection of Americana, Old Westbury, Long Island, N.Y. 1946.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Mrs. H.I. Pratt walking through the pathway in her highly regarded gardens at her home on the North Shore of Long Island, N.Y.; the Pratt family made its fortune through Standard Oil, 1946.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A colonial style home in Long Island’s North Shore, 1946.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Mrs. F. P. Garvan, the daughter of business tycoon Anthony N. Brady, admired a cocker spaniel along with her son and daughter-in-law, North Shore, Long Island, N.Y., 1946.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A home on Long Island’s North Shore, 1946.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The bathroom in a home on Long Island’s North Shore, 1946.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A home in Long Island’s Gold Coast, 1946.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
This half-mile hedged walk was part of the Syosset home of banker and philanthropist Richard M. Tobin, 1946.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
North Shore, Long Island, N.Y., 1946.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A hedged walkway down to the lake from a mansion on the North Shore of Long Island, N.Y., 1946.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The home of stockbroker Edwin A. Fish in Locust Valley on the North Shore of Long Island, N.Y., 1946.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A canopied bed covered in flower print from a North Shore estate, 1946.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The living room of a North Shore estate, Long Island, N.Y., 1946.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Hand-painted trays adorned the walls of the North Shore home of Harvey Gibson, president of Manufacturers Trust bank, Long Island, N.Y., 1946.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Mrs. Cyrus Newkick Johns, exiting the church with her husband after their wedding ceremony at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Lattingtown on the North Shore of Long Island, N.Y., 1946.
The Eurail Pass helped remake summer travel. Introduced in 1959 by a group of cooperating European railroads, it gave tourists the opportunity to hop from country to country on a single golden ticket.
This offering was not only popular, it was transformative. One reason was that it attracted many a student and other budget traveler for a summer of European adventure. The other was that introduced Americans to a new set of destinations that went beyond the grand European capitals. Every stop on the train became a place to explore. Here’s how LIFE described the joy of the Eurail Pass in its Aug. 14, 1970 issue:
Nowadays more and more Americans—many of them equipped with only a knapsack and a sleeping bag—are bypassing the tourist traps to explore out-of-the-way towns and villages. And they are discovering that one of the finest—and cheapest—ways to roam the continent is on Europe’s dense network of railroads.
The story praised the comfort and the punctuality of European trains, and the pictures by LIFE photographer Carlo Bavagnoli did plenty to sell the experience. The most exotic photo from his set is of a rider in the salon car of a French train, having her hair washed in preparation for a styling.
But the true Eurail experience was more about exploration than luxury. Bavagnoli’s photos of young people bumming around train stations or asleep in railcar seats, on their way to their next new experience, capture its fundamental appeal.
Bavagnoli’s photos also give glimpses of European attractions, such as the tilework in Portugal or a historic cathedral in Germany. Taken as a whole, the pictures capture the thrill of being able to bounce from one country to another without ever having to step on an airplane.
That basic appeal is why the Eurail Pass remains a popular offering today, with the current service expanded to 33 countries—Estonia and Latvia were the most recent to come on board, in 2020. Not only that, but rail companies in other countries have been inspired by the Eurail Pass to create their own cooperative products in India, in Japan, and in South Korea.
Then as now, just thinking about all the possible destinations can’t help but excite the imagination.
Germany’s “Parsifal Express” sped past a cathedral in Cologne, Germany, 1970.
Carlo Bavagnoli/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
In Amsterdam, American Eurail Pass holders pondered their next destination, 1970.
Carlo Bavagnoli/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A traveler enjoyed the scenery from the observation deck of italy’s silver-and-green, seven-car “Settobello” that ran between Rome and Milan,1970.
Carlo Bavagnoli/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Eurail Pass travelers, 1970.
Carlo Bavagnoli/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The French “Mistral” train that traveled between Paris and Nice included an on-board hair salon, 1970.
Carlo Bavagnoli/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Eurail Pass travelers, 1970.
Carlo Bavagnoli/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Three American students caught some sleep on Norway’s Oslo-Bergen line, 1970.
Carlo Bavagnoli/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Eurail Pass travelers enjoyed a picnic on a Norwegian train, 1970.
Carlo Bavagnoli/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Eurail Pass travelers in Europe, 1970.
Carlo Bavagnoli/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
An agent checked passports for train riders at the Swss border, 1970.
Carlo Bavagnoli/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A Spanish train flashed past a small fishing village on its way along the Costa Brava, 1970.
Carlo Bavagnoli/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
American travelers enjoyed a trip on the Rhine river on the steamer “Deutschland,” 1970.
Carlo Bavagnoli/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
European train travelers, 1970.
Carlo Bavagnoli/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
People waiting on the platform of a Portuguese train station, 1970.
Carlo Bavagnoli/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
European train travelers, 1970.
Carlo Bavagnoli/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The view from aboard the”Mediolanum,” which sped from Milan to Munich in less than six hours, 1970.
Two young American Eurail Pass holders in a train station, on the way to their next adventure, 1970.
Carlo Bavagnoli/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
