#black and white photos
Balloon weddings were once all the rage. When flight was a novelty in the 19th century, these “destination weddings” became quite the spectacle.
The Sept. 27, 1888 wedding of Margaret Buckley and Edward T. Davis drew an estimated 40,000 people, who watched as the couple took to the air after their ceremony at the Rhode Island State Fair.
Their honeymoon-by-sky hit a snag, though, when the balloon landed in a swamp that evening. The passengers had to cling to the ropes above the basket to stay out of the water—and decided to finish the trip by train.
Later, the couple reenacted their wedding for a photographer in a studio, which is how we have this photo in our National Air and Space Museum.
Read more about this old-school wedding trend.
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Monday feels: Mary Jane the baby sloth, born at our National Zoo in 1964.
Zoo staff, who hand-reared Mary Jane, named the two-toed sloth long before it was determined that the baby was a male. He’s seen snuggling at 9 months old in this Smithsonian Institution Archives photo.
More about Mary Jane and the work of our staff in raising young animals.
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When is a photograph more than a picture?
These stunning images are a preview of the first special exhibition at our @nmaahc, which explores the stories behind more than 150 photographs and related objects from their collection.
The images, by established and emerging photographers from the 19th century to the present, show a range of American experiences. They challenge you to look beyond the surface to consider their significance in history, their cultural meaning, and your own perspective.
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Tetta KannelL, “Battle with the Fabric”, Textile installation with the artist herself (Finnish textile/fashion designer). Photographer: E.J.Manninen, 1966.
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“we have witnessed.”
FROM OUR ARCHIVES: ZANELE MUHOLI
@muholizanele
Read more at Museemagazine.com
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Saints of Never After
The Marquis, Denver, CO
My photo–please don’t repost but feel free to reblog :)
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We went to watch some friends perform their swing dancing routine recently, and as weird as this may sound, I was really disappointed to not see flashes of stockings tops while the women were being twirled around. I don’t dance so I don’t know if it’s comfortable to dance in a suspender belt and stockings, but I wish I had seen some good old fashioned hosiery peeking out from the flying skirts. I…
The Man Who Had an Iron Spike Go Completely Through his Head and Lived – The Sad and Bizarre Story of Phineas Gage
Phineas Gage is the most famous person to have survived severe damage to the brain. His accident illustrates the first medical knowledge gained on the relationship between personality and brain damage. After his injury, he turned into a completely different person - an entirely new personality.
A well-liked and successful construction foreman, Phineas Gage was contracted to work for the Rutland & Burlington Railroad in Vermont. In September 1848 while Gage was preparing a railroad bed, an accidental explosion of a charge he had set, blew a 13-pound tamping iron straight through his head.
The tamping iron was 1 ¼ inches in diameter. It went in point first under his left cheek bone and completely out through the top of his head, landing about 25 to 30 yards behind him.
Despite his torn scalp and fractured skull, Gage remained lucid and rational during the ride to the hospital and was even able to speak. Cage not only survived losing a chunk of his brain, he was able to returned home in only 10 weeks. Unfortunately, Gage’s recovery was not a complete success.
The once friendly and well-liked man became mean, impatient, rude, and seemed to have lost any empathy toward others. Those who knew him before the accident said he was “no longer Gage.”
Cage worked in several livery stables for the next ten years until 1859 when his health began to fail. He moved to San Francisco to live with his mother and began to experience the epileptic seizures that would lead to his death in 1860. The tale is heart-breaking.
His story is still standard content in medical, anatomy, and psychology textbooks. His skull and the tamping iron are currently on display in the Warren Museum Exhibition Gallery in Boston, Massachusetts.
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10 Must See Photos from the 1950s
- Marijuana plant in Van Nuys, California jail. Officer F.G. Plamonden gapes at blooming plant of marijuana. Officers wonder what goes on with the plant. Cops later found out that it was sent to Valley Division to be in a lecture on narcotics, 1951
- Kicking it with the cool kids - photographer Jean Depara’s photos of life in Kinshasa, Africa in the early 1950s
- Pablo Picasso has fun playing Popeye, 1957
- Marilyn Monroe kicks a ball at Ebbets Field, New York, 1957
- Miss New Zealand collapses during the Miss Universe pageant, 1954
- Kisses and shiny new dimes given out to anyone who appeared “optimistic” in downtown Santa Monica during the Optimist Week celebration, 1951
- A woman demonstrates shoes equipped with spurs and other sharp metal objects for fighting off men and their unwanted advances, 1956
- Men in full make-up dining enjoying a meal together, 1950s
- A rare look into Lucy and Dezi’s home in the 1950s
- Taking a train ride on the real Orient Express as passengers eat in the dining car, 1950s
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jansoneannija via instagram
