Several children, expressing great excitement at finishing their gift-opening on Christmas morning, 1940s.
Month: December 2008
Two toddlers near the Christmas tree. Those bug-eyes and wide-open mouth on the floor, near the boy in the walker? That is Froggy the Gremlin,a children’s program character during the days of radio on NBC, and briefly moving to television in the 50s. The toy was produced by Rempel starting in 1948, which dates this photo to the late 1940s.
Merry Christmas, early 1960s.
Minnesota’s Christmas Tree, 1961.
In 1961, new governor Elmer Andersen sent his finest tree-experts to find a grand tree, an amazing tree, a tree that was big and accessible to crane, to place on the State Capital lawn. The tree was found in the pasture of Seldon Banks, who donated it to the state. The image above is of Andersen’s first official Minnesota Christmas Tree, from the year before; the misleading caption referring to the “Second tree” in the article is the 1962 tree that was erected before The Farmer could get a photo for their cover.
Man In Driving Gear, 1900s.
Plains Farmstead In Winter, 1920s.
Pipe Gang, 1937.
The “Pipe Gang” (closeup here), during construction of the West Fargo Armour Meat packing plant sewage treatment system, taken December 4, 1937.
Horse in Barnyard, 1930s.
Untitled Halsman, 1947.
This photo appeared in The Photographer’s Workshop in 1951, but the caption explains it was taken 4 years earlier when the young lady, a professional ballerina, was just 17 years old. The model is “Ricky” Soma, better known as Enrica Soma. In the gap between when the photo was taken and when it appeared in this magazine, the young ballerina had graced the cover of Life (also by Halsman, and probably taken the same time as the one above), married and separated from filmmaker John Houston, and, around the time this magazine was hitting newsstands, Soma was giving birth to actress Angelica Houston. Photo by Philippe Halsman.