Life Magazine in 1949

/

Continuing my look at Life Magazines on Internet Archive….

As I looked at the issues from 1949, the advertisements often stood out (for fossil fuels, Pillsbury, Lionel trains, train travel, World Book Encyclopedia) …and also items that were the beginnings that of things that have developed since then: farmers using lady bugs to control insects on crops, the launch of Viking II, Prince Charles (now King) as a baby, shale oil, a pipeline in Saudi Arabia, big oil in west Texas). Some articles referenced back to World War II: art depicting the Germans trying to burn out London and war babies starting first grade. Evident the cold in the first months of 1949 were very damaging in the Midwest and there was heavy snow in the Cascades in May!

The Life pictures are windows into what the publishers (and a lot of other people) thought was newsworthy in 1949.

Life Magazine 1949-01-03 - Farmers use ladybugs to control mealy bugs

Life Magazine 1949-01-11 - Picture of 28-day old Prince Charles

Life Magazine 1949-01-17 - Death through the Midwest from winter storms

Life Magazine 1949-01-23 - Puerto Rico housing, hotel, dam

Life Magazine 1949-01-30 - Truman inaugural, toddler sleeps in stroller afterward

Life Magazine 1949-02-07 - Mr. Churchill on holiday in Provence

Life Magazine 1949-02-14 - West fights worst winter in history

Life Magazine 1949-02-21 - Mauna Loa erupts

Life Magazine 1949-02-28 - Firemen’s paintings recall how the Germans tried to burn London out

 Life Magazine 1949-03-07 - Longwood Gardens Conservatory (called DuPont greenhouse in the article)

Life Magazine 1949-03-14 - Natural Bridge…Navajo sheep

Life Magazine 1949-03-21 - How oil builds for tomorrow (interesting that the illustration for the ad looks rather dystopian)

Life Magazine 1949-03-28 - Trans-Arabian Pipeline in Saudi Arabia

Life Magazine 1949-04-04 - Barcelona slum…and a palace

Life Magazine 1949-04-11 - Spring in Mississippi

Life Magazine 1949-04-18 - Weighing less than pie meringue, plastic froth can float on gas

Life Magazine 1949-04-25 - Hazford Rubert LXXXI – the grand old man of Hereford bulls

 Life Magazine 1949-05-02 - Texas bluebonnets

Life Magazine 1949-05-09 - Blue Bell play clothes

Life Magazine 1949-05-16 - Volkswagen Factory

Life Magazine 1949-05-23 - African Animals (flamingo and crowned crane)

Life Magazine 1949-05-30 - Snow drifts in May (Cascade Mountains)

Life Magazine 1949-06-06 - Niagara Falls paintings

Life Magazine 1949-06-13 - Go by Train! (advertisement)

Life Magazine 1949-06-20 - Skyline Drive (Shenandoah National Park)

Life Magazine 1949-06-27 - New Harvest adds to big wheat harvest

 Life Magazine 1949-07-11 - Grasshopper plague from Illinois to California

Life Magazine 1949-07-18 - Oil is mined in Colorado (oil shale)

Life Magazine 1949-07-25 - Yosemite National Park

Life Magazine 1949-08-01 - Jackie Robinson

Life Magazine 1949-08-08 - Arms for Europe

Life Magazine 1949-08-15 - Polio (uncontrollable disease)

Life Magazine 1949-08-22 - Earthquake in Ecuador – 5,000 dead

Life Magazine 1949-08-29 - Margaret Mitchell dies (after being hit by a car)

 Life Magazine 1949-09-05 - Swiss watchmaker

Life Magazine 1949-09-12 - Tito defies the Kremlin

Life Magazine 1949-09-12 - The war babies hit the first grade

Life Magazine 1949-09-26 - Soviet citizen prisoners marched off by the thousands

Life Magazine 1949-10-03 - The Viking’s flight

Life Magazine 1949-10-10 - Robert Oppenheimer

Life Magazine 1949-10-17 - Fall tree lined road in New Hampshire

Life Magazine 1949-10-24 - How to choose your Christmas cards (Grandma Moses)

Life Magazine 1949-10-31 – Petra

 Life Magazine 1949-11-07 - World Book Encyclopedia (advertisement)

Life Magazine 1949-11-14 - Holiday cooky (Pillsbury)

Life Magazine 1949-11-21 - Deformed fish reveal radiation effects

Life Magazine 1949-11-28 - Lionel train (advertisement)

Life Magazine 1949-12-05 - West Texas taps a big oil pool

Life Magazine 1949-12-12 - US constructs 60,000 miles of highway

Life Magazine 1949-12-19 - Christmas lights

Life Magazine 1949-12-26 - Armstrongs see the country…. (road trip)

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 25, 2022

/

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Ukrainian Students Are Taking Haunting Grad Photos in Rubble Created by the War – Life going on during war…graduation pictures that reflect a very different year in Ukraine.

The surprising benefits of fingers that wrinkle in water – A lot more questions and research than I expected!

Single brain scan can diagnose Alzheimer’s disease – Faster and earlier diagnosis…a component that could improve outcomes over the long term.

Photographer Captures Colorful “Moonbows” – In Yosemite National Park.

Walking toward healthier knees – “Those who reported walking for exercise had 40% decreased odds of new frequent knee pain compared to non-walkers” --- that’s a good stat to keep in mind as we get older and want to avoid increased knee problems.

Living with the prospect of assisted dying – A post about a man diagnosed with ALS…difficulty with the bureaucracy of assisted dying laws even with a clear-cut terminal diagnosis.

Alaska Ablaze – 5,000 lightning strikes…dozens of wildfires.

How to turn your garden into a carbon sink – Turning more yards into gardens…with more diverse plantings….a few more trees. Sometimes going a little wild is a good thing!

Pollen and Heat: a looming challenge for global agriculture – heat is a pollen killer for canola, corn, peanuts, and rice. It is becoming more important than ever for crops to bloom before the temperature rises…and it is getting more challenging as multi-day stretches of excess heat are becoming more common early in the growing season.

The life of a solitary bee – There are as many as 4,000 bee species in the US….and most of them are solitary. 98% of the native bee species in the US are solitary.

National Park Service Publications on Internet Archive

/

Last September - I browsed 18 publications from the National Park Service that have been scanned and are freely available on Internet Archive. They are all decades old….reflect history of the places. The oldest one is from 1917 (The National Parks Portfolio) which is clearly a snapshot from the early years of National Parks. I was particularly interested in the “Astronomy and astrophysics national historic landmark theme study” published in 1989 – the year my daughter was born and she has grown up to be an astrophysicist! The only park I visited before the publication was Yosemite; the publication is from 1990 and I visited in 1984. I’ve provided a sample image for each volume. Enjoy some armchair traveling with some browsing via Internet Archive…find some correlations in the publications and your own life.

Wind Cave, 1979

Agate Fossil Beds National Monument, Nebraska, 1980

Astronomy and astrophysics national historic landmark theme study, 1989