Life Magazine

[Matt Deckard]

What ever happened to the good old Life magazine. It had stories ranging from the local shoe maker to the newest silver screen star to the Presedent of the United States and they were always interesting and full of fantastic photos, many canded, of people just living life in their natural state.

I have seen many copies from the past and I think it's high time it made a come back in it's original form.

I've seen the bastardized small Life magazines that come as an insert in some local papers, though I think the heritage of the magazine deserves more than what we are seeing.


Life in the 30's \/

 

[Jack Armstrong]

The good news is that vintage Life magazines are plentiful and cheap at antique stores everywhere. And there's no better resource for getting the authentic feel of how people lived during the Golden Age.

 

[jake_fink]

There was a LIFE relaunch in the late 70s and the magazine lasted until fairly recently I believe. The new, smaller, weekly insert style is it's third time at the post. It's really such a product of its time (no pun intended), that nothing will ever compare to that first four decade run from the mid-thirties to the early-seventies. We live in highly - maybe over - mediated times and the photograph, the single frozen instant in black and white, seems to have lost much of its power to tell the story of our lives.

I have a huge collection of old LIFE magazines. They are cheap and plentiful and well worth collecting.

 

[CharlieH.]

Well, I finally got me a nice group of magazines from 1938 to 1941, and I must say they're simply amazing. The immediacy and liveliness of the pictures really brings back those years back to (for a lack of a synonym) life. And the articles aren't the only treasures to be found - the advertisements (the chief reason for my purchase) are positively gorgeous, and they are mostly illustrated instead of photogrpahed (One of my magazines has a green giant ad by Norman Rockwell).
Now that's what I call money well spent.

 

[lindylady]

Could you please tell me what newspapers carry Life magazine? I haven't seen the magazine for ages.

 

[Fletch]

LIFE (and life) got so cheezy and out-of-it during the '60s that it really wasn't itself any longer. It died about 1973. The revival in the late '70s was great reading for a while, at least for a school kid. I learned a lot and even got some social studies oral reports out of it. We could make xerox transparencies in the library for 10c and the pictures were great visual aids.

My favorite LIFE issue is the 1937 issue with no cover masthead. It would have gotten in the way of the comb of a prize rooster, so LIFE only appears in tiny type along the bottom. They never did this again, so I had to pay a good bit more for a collectible.

My favorite LIFE features are the 1941 report on CBS color television (with ditto pix), and a January 1942 spread on a blizzard in downtown Ames, Iowa, my home town.

 

[CharlieH.]

My favorite LIFE features are the 1941 report on CBS color television (with ditto pix)...

That's one of the issues I got!
There's lots of gold to be found in only 5 prewar copies.

 

[Sefton]

Not only do the originals from the the 1930's give plenty of candid shots of how people really looked, but you see something of the rather more open minded America that would become quite a bit more puritanical (or hypocritical if you prefer) as WWII began. I've a number of pre-war LIFE issues that feature a surprising amount of nudity in both adverstisments (It's o.k. because it's a fantasy/mythological reference,right?) and journalistic.
I have one issue that has an interesting article against censorship which gives a brief history of some of the more notable occasions in plays, books and pictorial art (a nice photo of some shapely topless French dancers is included...).

Seek out those old issues while you can find them cheap. It's worth the effort.

 

[Fletch]

Not only do the originals from the the 1930's give plenty of candid shots of how people really looked, but you see something of the rather more open minded America that would become quite a bit more puritanical (or hypocritical if you prefer) as WWII began.

You touch here on one of the best kept "open secrets" in modern cultural history – one that is likely lost to the collective memory now that the pre-WW2 era has pretty much slipped out of first hand recollection.

 

[Sefton]

You touch here on one of the best kept "open secrets" in modern cultural history – one that is likely lost to the collective memory now that the pre-WW2 era has pretty much slipped out of first hand recollection.

If you know anything of literature and music from the time it's not too much of a surprise. Also there is the all too few examples from the pre-code Hollywood. However,it still has the power to cause a bit of a double take when the frank and matter of fact attitudes that we usually associate with Europe are placed in front of our eyes inside good old "conservative" LIFE magazine. Maybe we can go forward by going backward in this instance.

 

[Fletch]

It may be that that deeper awareness will be limited to a small clutch of academics and obsessives. For the less educated or progressive, the 1950s will probably remain the ultimate fantasy goal, and the world before will only exist as a war at the end of a long gray-brown blur of sameness.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I think such cultural views are shaped more than anything by the baby-boomer conceit that nothing worthwhile happened before they were born, along with a consciousness shaped more by television and mass media than by anything that ever actually existed. A good book exploding the cultural myth of the fifties is "The Way We Never Were," by Stephanie Koontz. (She's a boomer herself, but did some actual research!)

As for Life magazine, it's everywhere once you start looking for it. If you pay more than $5 a copy for it, you're getting shafted -- so buyer beware!

 

[Fletch]

The Way We Never Were is something I've been wanting to read - so I'll definitely pick that up.

I used to get my LIFEs from a street vendor near Columbus Circle, so yes, I probably did help pay for sidewalk rental. :-/

As for television - it has this way of simplifying history, particularly its own history.

 

[HadleyH]

Not only do the originals from the the 1930's give plenty of candid shots of how people really looked, but you see something of the rather more open minded America that would become quite a bit more puritanical (or hypocritical if you prefer) as WWII began.

It's interesting how there are no rules of sociological behaviour when it comes to wars.
After 1WW exactly the opposite occured, an opening of morals ,a total abandon in conduct, ethics broke free from restraint. Go figure [huh]

 

[Sefton]

I think such cultural views are shaped more than anything by the baby-boomer conceit that nothing worthwhile happened before they were born, along with a consciousness shaped more by television and mass media than by anything that ever actually existed. A good book exploding the cultural myth of the fifties is "The Way We Never Were," by Stephanie Koontz. (She's a boomer herself, but did some actual research!)

As for Life magazine, it's everywhere once you start looking for it. If you pay more than $5 a copy for it, you're getting shafted -- so buyer beware!

That sounds quite interesting,I'll check it out.
Thanks for the tip. I've got to admit that I've paid more than $5 a copy though. Once for a 30's issue with Bette Davis on the cover and again for the premiere issue. You're right though,usually they can be had cheap.

 

[Weston]

It'd be nice to see a new version launched that ACTUALLY depicts real life, and not this disgusting elitist "upper crust" life that advertisers use to browbeat people into thinking that without 52" plasma screens they aren't "normal" or up to speed. Show life as it is for the majority of Americans – working at normal every day jobs, not being high powered advertising execs or publishing magnates. Pictures from inside Wal-Mart, kids pageants at elementary school from somewhere besides the coasts – remember that MASSIVE chunk of America that exists outside the field of coastal news offices?

 

[Haversack]

HadleyH wrote: "It's interesting how there are no rules of sociological behaviour when it comes to wars. After 1WW exactly the opposite occured, an opening of morals ,a total abandon in conduct, ethics broke free from restraint. Go figure"

I think that for Great Britain and France, WWI was a much more traumatic experience than was WWII. After WWI, it was, (as the old song would have it, _The World Turned Upsidedown_). The old order and its rules were gone and the world would never be the same. There was also a noticable shortage of young men...

This was not really the case for the USA as it was in comparison only lightly touched by the war. In a way, WWI was like the 21st Birthday for the US. We had become an adult nation and taken an active part on the world stage. There was even a realization at the time that US participation would change us. (e.g. _How're You Gonna Keep 'Em Down On The Farm, After They've Seen Paree?_) As the 1920s dawned, the US was full of vim, vigor, and ready for fun.

Both of these instances contributed to what we know as the Roaring Twenties.

WWII was different in that most of Europe was too busy rebuilding its infrastructure and getting enough food to eat to bother much with morality. A lot of ugly things happened directly AFTER the war which everyone concerned has mostly tried to forget. For the USA, while its infrastructure was intact, the population had been mobilized for almost four years and there was a distinct hunger for a return to normalacy. Normalacy being a family, a house and a job to support them. In a way, it was like the difference between being young and single with money to spend, and married, with children, and a mortgage to meet. One's outlook and priorities change.

Haversack.

 

[Weston]

Fascinating Haversack. I get cranky, and you contribute to the conversation with valuable information. Much appreciated.

 

[HadleyH]

Thank you Haversack for explaining that! You are right saying that WW1 was more traumatic for Europe than the USA, but on boths sides of the Atlantic it lead to a more relax way of living, a kind of "live the present because tomorrow you can be dead" sort of thing. And yes, with WW2, as you say priorities changed.

 

[Haversack]

Thanks HadleyH and Weston for the kind words. It is interesting to see the social pendulum swing back and forth. I've personally seen the changes from the 1950s to the 1970s to the 20-oughts. If history is anything to go by, the pendulum will continue to do so, but hopefully without external pushes exaggerating the motion. Newtonian Social Physics.

The Inter-war Years did make a deep impression. Revolutions. Hyper-inflation. The Depression. And that mad search for escape by the Lost Generation in Paris, the Bright Young Things of London, the decadence of Weimar Berlin, and the Jazz Age of the Roaring Twenties. Action, Reaction. When did LIFE start by the way?

Haversack.