1958 Hybrid Car Body

Hybrid Car Body
Attracting a lot of attention around Wethersfield, England, is a "custom" car body synthesized by a U.S. Air Force officer. Beginning with a Ford Anglia chassis, Lt. Col. Edward Risher added a cut-down Chevrolet hood, the rear windshield from an American Ford and Austin Bantom wheels.  As a final touch, Col. Risher used two wing tanks from a T-33 jet trainer.


From December 1958 Popular Mechanics magazine

1958 Greatest Magicians

 Milbourne Christopher, shown here levitating a beautiful assistant with the greatest of ease, is acclaimed by magicians themselves to be the foremost historian of magic.  His immense reference library covers 5000 years of hocus-pocus, and his Manhattan apartment is the largest museum of magic in existence.  In addition, Chrisopher is one of the greatest of contemporary wizards and is past president of the Society of American Magicians.

 Suspicious London bobby was the first spectator to see David Devant's startling illusion, "The Mascot Moth"

 Bearded DeKolta made his wife disappear in view of audience.  Newspapers proved no trap doors were used.

"Onaip" was a staggering illusion in which a piano and pianist revolved in midair during musical number

Horace Goldin was a master at sawing an assistant in half, one of the most famous and spectacular of all stage illusions  All other magicians placed the girl in a closed box, but Goldin simply had her lie on a plank throughout his surgical sorcery.


This appeared in the December 1958 issue of Popular Mechanics magazine

1960 skidmaster

I can almost guarantee I've seen one of these at an estate sale and had no idea what it was!

There are so many things that could go wrong with this set-up. 

advertisement in Dec 1960 Popular Mechanics magazine

1959 Mini Bus

Dubbed the "Little Hound Line", this scale-model bus is 3' 5" wide and 4' 4" high

Miniature Bus For Small Riders
in March 1959 Popular Mechanics magazine



Eight children and one adult, the driver, can ride in a miniature bus constructed by L.A. Beretta of Lexington, Mo., from sheet aluminum and parts of cars and arm machinery.  The tiny bus, a scale model of the type used by one of the cross-country buslines, has a top speed of 25 miles per hour.  It's powered by an eight-horsepower engine and has an automatic transmission that works through a centrifugal clutch. 

The midget bus has a wheelbase of 83 inches and weighs 1280 pounds.  Beretta spent three years of his pare time on the project, plus $475 for materials.  He did all the work himself except for welding the frame.  The springs came from a hay baler and from a mower.  The bus has tractor headlights, fender parking lights from a 1941 Ford and directional lights converted from the parking lights of a 1941 Chevrolet.  License-plate holders serve as side windows.

1959 Build your own BACKYARD MERRY-GO-ROUND

published in the March 1959 Popular Mechanics magazine

1934 Sally Rand, Fan Dancer

Sally Rand
A white bird flying in the moonlight?

In Brooklyn, where she was appearing at the paramount Theatre, famed Fan Dancer Sally Rand revealed that she had been offered "a big sum" to indorse nudism.  Said she: "The offer shocked me. I knew that if I endorsed it, a lot of fat old men would join the cult just to see me without fans.  It made me sick that my lovely dance should be confused with such things.  All the nudists I ever saw had scratches all over their rear ends where they had been sitting on thorns."

To a World-Telegram interviewer Sally Rand explained that the makeup she uses on her body makes her itch.  Said she:  "Doesn't it feel good to scratch?"  Her description of her dance:  "It is just my interpretation of a white bird flying in the moonlight at dusk."  Her tribute to Henry Sittenberg, who makes her fans:  "Henry has been in the business for 40 years and since I began my dance at the World's Fair last summer his business has picked up 100%. He estimates that I have 1,000 competitors...He makes the best fans for me."  Her family:  "I bought my mother an orange grove near Los Angeles and I gave her a tractor for a birthday present.  Her real name is Annette Kisling.  My real name is Helen Beck, and I was born in Hickory County, Missouri.  My mother has been married twice.  We grow the best apples in the world in Hickory county."  Her career:  "I have been having such a good time."  Other Rand observations:  "It shouldn't cost anything to go naked.  I like to be as naked as possible....I think my dance is the most beautiful thing in the world.....I could just stretch out and sleep forever...."

Article on page 56 of Time magazine
March 12, 1934

1960 Downtown Manhattan Ice Skating at Apartments

Ice Skating Rink Built Into Downtown Apartment
Midtown Manhattan seems an unusual spot for a private ice skating rink, but at 213 West 58th Street there's a 20 by 32-foot skating area built into the rear of a fashionable apartment building.  The owner, Alan Murray, a shoe manufacturer and ice-skating instructor, had the rink built into the site of an unused stable behind the building so his friends and students could take a turn on the ice without inconvenience or temperature worries.  An ice-making machine capable of freezing 10 tons of ice a day keeps the ice in shape, and Mr. Murray's apartment and offices are around and above the rink.  

The picture shows the host and his daughter as they watch the skaters from the apartment.

From December 1960 Popular Mechanics magazine

1959 What's New in Boats

Article in March 1959 Popular Mechanics Magazine

Sailing Saucer is basically an inflatable play raft that can be rigged as a sailbot.  Hull consists of two fabric sections in a mahogany frame.  Bamboo mast is steped into the framework.
Yogi Yachts, Midway, Washington

Power Skis combine the fun of skiing and boating. The skis, 10' long, will support 300 pounds. Powered by a 25 horsepower motor, they give the skier a fast run in calm waters.
Marin-E products, 3030 Bridgeway, Sausalito, Calif

1960 Indoor Swing

Rainy-Day Swing
Designed to hang from three clothesline hooks screwed to the basement joists, this indoor swing will while away many hours for cooped-up youngsters.  It's made from 1 x 3 lumber, 1-inch dowels, and hung with strong hemp rope

from Dec 1960 Popular Mechanics Magazine

1960 High Chair Collapses into Bed

High Chair Collapses Into Bed
Since lunchtime for children is quickly followed by naptime, a French inventor devised a chair for feeding that quickly converts into a bed for sleeping.  The chair's table and footrest fold to form the foot of the bed; the backrest folds back toform the head. The canopy for the day-bed slips into a pocket behind the chair.

December 1960 Popular Mechanics magazine

1960 Cot for Babies & Toddlers

Pint-Sized Cot Keeps Baby Happy
From November 1960 Popular Mechanics


Built to provide baby with a safe, comfortable and familiar bunk anywhere the family goes, the new British "Autocot" fits snugly between the front seat and the rear deck in any car; won't slip during turns or sudden stops.  The canvas hammock is slung from an aluminum frame which expands from 40 to 48 inches in two-inch steps to adjust to cars of any length.  Outside the car, aluminum legs fold down to make a bed or seat for the yard, beach, or hotel rooms.  The whole cot weighs only four pounds, and collapses for carrying and storage into a flat 24-inch package.  Thus a bed familiar to the baby can be carried anywhere.

1940s George Hurrell, Photographer to the stars

So, these were in a trunk of vintage newspapers & magazines that I acquired YEARS ago. They all have tape around the edges, like they were framed at some point in time.

Based on my limited research, these may have appeared in an Esquire magazine.

Stunning photography!

Sally Who?

She has the "girl next door" look.

And this one could easily pass for a modern "selfie", but in the 1940s....not an everyday image

1937 Opera Tenor Brings Down Chicago Opera House

Article from December 13, 1937 Time Magazine

Tenor
Tip-top Italian-style tenors have always been a scarce commodity, and for the past two decades they have been growing scarcer & scarcer.  Opera impresarios count on the fingers of one hand (Gigli, Lauri-Volpi, Borgioli, Schipa…) the lusty high-voiced Latins still capable of raising even moderate-sized rafters on either side of the Atlantic.  Since the death of Enrico Caruso (1921), tenor departments of U.S opera houses have shown a steady decline.  Today their audiences count it a privilege to hear their "Ridi Pagliaccios" and "La donna è mobiles" sung by anything bigger than a microphone voice. 

Last week, during a performance of Tosca, pandemonium broke loose in Chicago's Civic Opera House.  Excited opera-goers pounded the floor, stood on their seats and yelled frantic approval.  Conductor Moranzoni tried to get the performance going again, was stopped by a gusty chorus of "boos."  For more than five minutes the demonstration continued. Finally the cause of it, a broad-shouldered, lusty looking Italian tenor, Galliano Marsini, repeated "E lucevan le stele."  And the opera was allowed to go on.

Son of a Livornese macaroni maker, 34-year-old Masini worked once as a stevedore, then as a mechanic, was sent to Milan by admiring townsmen.  He claims that he never took a singing lesson, that the Milanese taught him only repertory.  He made a  debut in Livorno (Tosca) in 1928 and has sung since at La Scala and other leading European opera-houses.

Masini's U.S. debut in Lucia di Lammermoor las month, and subsequent appearances in La Gioconda and Tosca as "one long crescendo of excitement," now spoke of him unhesitatingly as "another Caruso."  While Chicago music-lovers last week were congratulating each other on this sensation of the musical season, Tenor Masini was being watched by hawk-eyed impresarios from coast to coast.

Smoking A Pipe Through the Years