This Week's Best Old Photos.

January 28, 2023.

1. Ziegfeld Follies, 1907-’36.

For 25 years, Florenz Ziegfeld’s elaborate Broadway productions were the place to start a career in show business; and many big names from the 20th century entertainment world did just that, including W. C. Fields, Bob Hope, Will Rogers, Barbara Stanwyck, Sophie Tucker and Ed Wynn. Inspired by the Folies Bergere of Paris and a step up from vaudeville, the Ziegfeld Follies offered patrons a series of dance and musical acts, comedy sketches and beautiful young girls, flamboyantly dressed, parading in theatrical tableaus. What’s not to like? Photos: 1/ Billie Reeves, Grace Tyson and Fanny Brice in a scene from the Follies of 1910. 2/ Promotional artwork, 1910. 3/ Anna Held Dancers in The Ziegfeld Follies of 1907. 4/ Billie Dove, 1920. 5/ Irving Berlin (at piano), Eddie Cantor, Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr., and Sammy Lee during rehearsals for The Ziegfeld Follies of 1927. 6/ Muriel Finlay, 1927.

2. Minnesota farm families move to Alaska, 1935.

In 1935, the federal government recruited 203 destitute farm families from Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan to resettle on raw land in the Matanuska Valley of Alaska, about 45 miles northwest of Anchorage. The government hoped these farm families could tolerate the harsh Alaskan climate and possessed the skills needed to develop a self-sustaining farming community. The government covered much of the families’ start-up costs, including moving expenses; but by 1948, less than one-third of these families remained on the Alaskan farms. Most found the work required to turn the rocky glacial valley into arable land was more than they had bargained for; but many who quit the project stayed on in Alaska, finding paying work in fishing, logging, and postwar military construction. These photos were taken by famed Depression photographer Dorothea Lange. They document the journey of Minnesota families who traveled to San Francisco by train, where they boarded a large ship bound for Alaska. It must have seemed like a trip to the Moon.

3. Elwood Haynes and America’s first car, 1894.

Move over, Henry Ford. It was Elwood Haynes, of Kokomo, IN, who designed and built America’s first commercially successful car, test-driving it on July 4, 1894, two years before Ford test-drove his Quadricycle. The Haynes Pioneer was a gasoline-powered, one-horsepower, one-cylinder vehicle capable of reaching a speed of 6 or 7 mph, which was fast enough to earn Haynes the nation’s first speeding ticket in Chicago in 1895. Haynes’s Pioneer is on display in the Smithsonian, which claims it is the oldest American-made automobile in existence. Photos: 1/ Elwood Haynes in the Pioneer. 2/ The 1902 Haynes-Apperson automobile.

4. Alexander Gardner’s Civil War photography.

After studio photographer Mathew Brady witnessed the Battle of Manassas, VA, in 1861, he petitioned President Lincoln for permission to send photographers to Civil War battle sites. Lincoln granted permission for the venture, provided Brady self-finance the project; and Brady hired Alexander Gardner, then his studio manager, and others to travel to the battlefields and photograph the war, providing them with equipment and traveling dark rooms. Some Civil War photos that have been attributed to Brady were actually taken by Gardner and the others, but these are among those known to have been taken by Gardner: 1/ Confederate prisoners at Fairfax, VA, June 1863. 2/ Dead soldiers lay on the Gettysburg battlefield, July 1863. 3/ Union telegraph construction crew, Brandy Wine, VA, 1864. 4/ Black men bury soldiers who fell ten months earlier at Cold Harbor, VA, April 1865.

5. Harlem Depression art, 1935-43.

The Works Progress Administration was a New Deal program initiated during the Franklin Roosevelt administration to provide paying work for artists and others who had lost jobs during the Depression. As a part of this program, the Harlem Arts Community Center in New York City provided equipment, mentors and studios for local artists to pursue their craft, resulting in a rich collection of lithographs, etchings, drawings and paintings which depict the Black experience. 1/ Harlem WPA Street Dance, by Elizabeth Olds, 1935-43. 2/ Pieta, by Marion Kronfeld, 1940. 3/ Bathers, Harlem River, by Saul Kovner, 1939. 4/ Macedonia A.M.E., by Prentiss Taylor, 1934.

6. Remembering Marine LT Kenneth Wayne Smi…