Life Magazine picture scan from Google

If you haven't seen it yet, Google's project to scan the Life Magazine photo archives (including unpublished ones) from the 1940's and later, is pretty amazing:

http://images.google.com/hosted/life

For fun, type in your favorite keyword like "Baltimore", "toaster", "Billie Holiday", "fashion", "dance", "george Formby", "hula hoop", or "prohibition".

Also, they're just getting started - eight million more to scan!

It's a veritable motherlode of great pictures! I found some great Susan Hayward pics and Academy Award photos from the 1950s.

That is a great search facility. Obviously I typed in 'stockings'. 'lingerie', 'heels' etc. before 'source:life' and got some fantastic pics!

I think LIFE was a little more risque than a lot of folks liked to let on when they think about "back then"

the_librarian wrote:

I think LIFE was a little more risque than a lot of folks liked to let on when they think about "back then"

Absolutely! Even the ads were pretty racy, at least in the '30's... Simonize were always showing photographic backsides and busts as part of their "Don't let your car go nudist" campaign. "How to Strip for your Husband" was pretty spicy... again the '30's.

I've got a bunch of hardbound and loose Life's, mostly rescued from a college library purge. Sex has ALWAYS been a part of popular culture.