Atlantic City: Scenes From a Beach Town’s Heyday

In 1941 legendary LIFE photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt went to Atlantic City and chronicled the bustling activity and amusements of the beach town at its peak.

In these pictures you’ll see the 1940 Miss America, Frances Burke, who had been crowned the year before at Atlantic City’s Convention Hall, posing with her sash on the beach. You’ll see the crowds at night flocking to the legendary Steel Pier amusement park, while others enjoy fine dining in a grand hotel. You’ll see women wearing bathing caps into the ocean to protect their hairdos, as was common in those days. And you’ll see boardwalk attractions that were very much of their time: one booth charged people 15 cents (about $3 today) to have their blood pressure taken. The Sodamat” sold drinks for a nickel. People mobbed a Heinz 57 specialty store that was apparently trying to live up to its “57 varieties” slogan.

Also notable is the sheer prevalence of senior citizens, many of whom went out in the summertime sun wearing suits and dresses, as if they were going to a formal event rather than a day at the shore.

These photos were shot toward the end of the Atlantic City heyday that began in the early 20th century and waned as tourists moved on to other destinations. By 1977 the town’s fortunes had sagged enough that Atlantic City turned to legalized gambling, becoming the first U.S location outside Nevada to do so. The casinos that sprouted up along the boardwalk, some of them taking the place of the grand hotels of yesteryear, did provide a shot in the arm, but the benefits have proved fleeting, especially after competing casinos began popping up all around the country. In 2023 Atlantic City still claims 27 million visitors a year.

Its battle to recapture its glory days make Atlantic City something of an avatar for nostalgia itself. In 1980 Louis Malle directed a movie called Atlantic City in which a small-time mobster played by Burt Lancaster was so consumed by romantic visions of days gone by that he memorably declared to a younger character, “You should have seen the Atlantic Ocean in those days.”

In these photos you can do just that.

Aerial view of people at the beach, Atlantic City, N.J., 1941.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Atlantic City, N.J., 1941.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Frances Burke, winner of the 1940 Miss American pageant, joined Miss Atlantic City on the beach Atlantic City, N.J., 1941.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

People going onto the beach at Atlantic City, N.J., 1941.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The beach at Atlantic City, N.J., 1941.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Readers on a hotel terrace, Atlantic City, N.J., 1941.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Atlantic City, N.J., 1941.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Boardwalk at Atlantic City, N.J., 1941.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Atlantic City, N,J., 1941.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Atlantic City, N.J., 1941.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Lifeguards in action, Atlantic City, N.J., 1941.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sketch artists on the beach, Atlantic City, N.J., 1941.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The boardwalk at Atlantic City, N.J., 1941.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Posted regulations, Atlantic City, N.J., 1941.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A wicker rolling chair passed by a Philip Morris tobacco shop, Atlantic City, N.J. , 1941.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Crocheting on the boardwalk, Atlantic City, N.J, 1941.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The boardwalk at Atlantic City, N.J., 1941.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The boardwalk at Atlantic City, N.J., 1941.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

People crowded a hot dog stand on the boardwalk at Atlantic City, N.J., 1941.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The boardwalk at Atlantic City, N.J., 1941.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Boardwalk at Atlantic City, N.J,, 1941.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Atlantic City, N.J., 1941.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

An exterior view of the Brighton Hotel in Atlantic City, N.J. in 1941.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Frances Green (right) of Baltimore and Charles McIntosh of Brampton, Ontatio enjoying a ride in a wicker rolling chair through the pergola at the Brighton Hotel en route to the beach, Atlantic City, N.J., 1941

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Atlantic City, N.J., 1941.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Nurses tending to afflicted children as they lie on a sun deck, Atlantic City, N.J., 1941.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The Knife & Fork restaurant, Atlantic City, N.J, 1941.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Lucy the Elephant in Margate, N.J., not far from Atlantic City, N.J, 1941.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Ice skating, Atlantic City, N.J., 1941.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

People dining at the Marlborough-Blenheim Hotel in Atlantic City, N.J., 1941.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Ice capades at the Convention Hall in Atlantic City, N.J., 1941.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Atlantic City, New Jersey, 1941.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

People gathering outside of Steel Pier in Atlantic City, N.J., 1941.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Robert Oppenheimer in LIFE

J. Robert Oppenheimer, one of the defining figures of the 20th century, will be introduced to a new generation with the release of Christopher Nolan’s movie Oppenheimer on July 21, 2023. A look at the film’s trailer and at LIFE’s pictures of the scientist known as “the father of the atomic bomb” will confirm at least this: the movie’s star, Cillian Murphy, bears a stunning resemblance to Oppenheimer.

Oppenheimer first appeared in LIFE in 1945, the year the first atomic bombs were dropped. The pictures here show Oppenheimer with General Leslie Groves (played by Matt Damon in Nolan’s movie), who led the Manhattan Project that developed the bombs, and also addressing reporters who came to New Mexico to see the site of the first atomic bomb detonation.

Oppenheimer returned in LIFE’s Dec. 29, 1947 issue, as part of a larger story on Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Studies. Oppenheimer was its new director, and the photos by LIFE’s Alfred Eisenstaedt showed Oppenheimer in conversation with Albert Einstein, one of the institute’s founding professors, thus capturing two of the most influential figures of 20th-century physics in one frame.

LIFE’s biggest and most defining story on Oppenheimer came in the Oct. 10, 1949 issue, when the scientist appeared on the cover of the magazine. The story was written by Lincoln Barnett, a former LIFE editor who that year had produced a major book about Einstein. The photos, again by Alfred Eisenstaedt, depicted Oppenheimer’s softer side—in one his young son is giving him a noogie. But Barnett’s story delved into the heart of what makes Oppenheimer so fascinating: he possessed both the brilliance to create the atomic bomb and the awareness to grasp the horror of his creation.

It all comes to a head when Barnett describes Oppenheimer witnessing the first detonation of at atomic bomb at the test site in New Mexico. It is as heavy a paragraph as anyone will every write about anyone:

And when the great ball of fire rolled upward to the blinded stars, fragments of the Bhagavad-Gita flashed into his mind: “If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the MIghty One….I am become Death, the shatterer of worlds.” And as the shock and the sound waves hurled themselves furiously against the distant mountains, Oppenheimer knew that he and his coworkers had acquired a promethian burden they could never shed. “In some crude sense,” he observed later, “which no vulgarity, no humor, no overstatement can quite extinguish, the physicists have known sin, and this is a knowledge they cannot lose.”

Weeks after that moment, Oppenheimer’s creation did indeed shatter worlds, as the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing between 129,000 and 226,000 thousand people, and bringing World War II to a close.

Oppenheimer would go on to oppose the creation of the next generation of nuclear weapons, the hydrogen bomb, and LIFE again took a close examination of Oppenheimer’s life in its April 26, 1954 issue, when, owing in part to that stance and also to some associations, he became a target for anti-communists during the Red Scare and had his security clearance revoked. LIFE wrote, “Whatever the truth of the charges and whatever the outcome of the inquiry the situation which involved one of the nation’s most brilliant scientific minds was in itself a national tragedy.”

The government would eventually mend fences with Oppenheimer, who was back in LIFE in its Dec. 13, 1963 issue for a major piece on his receiving the Enrico Fermi Award. The prize for scientific achievement was awarded by John Kennedy but actually delivered by Lyndon B. Johnson—the main story of that issue of LIFE is about Johnson assuming the presidency after Kennedy’s assassination. That story brought yet another portrait of Oppenheimer by the estimable Alfred Eisenstaedt. This time he photographed the scientist in color, marking a more benign kind of technological progress.

Is it a tribute to the artistry of Eisenstaedt that his various portraits of Oppenheimer, shot across the years, reflect the story of his life through the subject’s eyes.

J. Robert Oppenheimer spoke to New York Times reporter William Laurence (left) during a press visit to the A-bomb blast site, 1945.

Fritz Goro/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

General Leslie Groves (left) and J. Robert Oppenheimer, key figures in the development of the first atomic bomb, 1945.

Marie Hansen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Manhattan Project officials, including Dr. Robert J. Oppenheimer (white hat) and, next to him, General Leslie Groves, inspected the detonation site of the Trinity atomic bomb test, the first detonation of an atomic weapon, 1945.

LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY/Life Picture Collection

American physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, 1947.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

J. Robert Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein, Princeton, New Jersey, 1947.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Albert Einstein and Robert Oppenheimer 1947

Albert Einstein and J. Robert Oppenheimer at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University, 1947.

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

J. Robert Oppenheimer, 1947.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

J. Robert Oppenheimer in his office at Princeton, 1949.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

J. Robert Oppenheimer, director of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton and chief technical advisor to the Atomic Energy Commission, 1949.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

J. Robert Oppenheimer with Hideki Yukawa, recipient of a Nobel Prize in physics, in Oppenheimer’s office at Princeton, 1949.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

J. Robert Oppenheimer at Princeton, 1949.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Katherine Oppenheimer, wife of J. Robert Oppenheimer, held a degree in mycology, and here tended some rare plants in their home greenhouse as her husband and their children Peter and Toni looked on, 1949.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/LIfe Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer was welcomed home by son Peter and daughter Toni, 1949.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

J. Robert Oppenheimer and his wife reading a book to their son, 1949.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

J. Robert Oppenheimer at home with his son Peter, Princeton, New Jersey, 1949.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

J. Robert Oppenheimer his wife Katherine (second from left) met Pearl Buck (second from right), at the president’s party for Nobel Prize winners at the White House, 1962. Buck won for Literature in 1938; Oppenheimer, while nominated three times for Physics, never won.

Arthur Rickerby/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

J. Robert Oppenheimer, 1963.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Gordon Parks, Beachwear, Cuba, 1956

In the course of his years as a LIFE staff photographer, the legendary Gordon Parks took on a great many memorable subjects. He explored issues of race and of poverty. He famously dramatized the Ralph Ellison novel Invisible Man. He also happened to be a masterly fashion photographer.

In 1956 he traveled to Havana for a beachwear shoot, at a time when the island was a popular travel destination for Americans, before FIdel Castro came to power and Cuban-American relations turned hostile. Enjoy, as the pictures capture not just the fashions of the moment but the feelings of playfulness and relaxation that come with a day at the beach.

Beach fashions, Cuba, 1956.

Gordon Parks/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Beach fashions, Cuba, 1956.

Gordon Parks/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Beach fashions, Cuba, 1956.

Gordon Parks/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Beach fashions, Cuba, 1956.

Gordon Parks/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Beach fashions, Cuba, 1956.

Gordon Parks/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Beach fashions, Cuba, 1956.

Gordon Parks/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Beach fashions, Cuba, 1956.

Gordon Parks/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Beach fashions, Cuba, 1956.

Gordon Parks/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Beach fashions, Cuba, 1956.

Gordon Parks/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Beach fashions, Cuba, 1956.

Gordon Parks/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Beach fashions, Cuba, 1956.

Gordon Parks/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Beach fashions, Cuba, 1956.

Gordon Parks/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Beach fashions, Cuba, 1956.

Gordon Parks/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Beach fashions, Cuba, 1956.

Gordon Parks/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Beach fashions, Cuba, 1956.

Gordon Parks/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Beach fashions, Cuba, 1956.

Gordon Parks/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Beach fashions, Cuba, 1956.

Gordon Parks/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Beach fashions, Cuba, 1956.

Gordon Parks/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Remembering Francoise Gilot, Artist and Picasso’s Lover

Francoise Gilot, who died on June 6, 2023 at the age of 101, led an astounding life. A highly regarded artist in her own right, she is inevitably—and perhaps unfairly—best known for her relationship with Pablo Picasso. They were together from 1943 to 1953, and they had two children together, Claude and Paloma. In 1964 Gilot published a popular and unflattering memoir of her life with Picasso that the artist unsuccessfully attempted to quash. A sign of the tumultuousness of their relationship is that there was a 1996 movie about it titled Surviving Picasso.

In 1970 she went on to marry Jonas Salk, inventor of the polio vaccine (this gallery includes an image of him as photographed by LIFE’s Alfred Eisenstaedt). Gilot and Salk were together until his death in 1995. When asked how she ended up in relationships with two of the most important figures of the 20th century, she explained, “Lions mate with lions.”

It was due to her proximity to Picasso that Gilot appeared before LIFE’s cameras. She was a presence in a 1968 double-issue of the magazine devoted entirely to Picasso. And she was also photographed by LIFE staff photographer Gjon Mili, who took perhaps the most famous photographs of Picasso, which featured the great artist drawing with light.

Gilot also drew with light—and to great effect—in one of Mili’s photos of her. Mili also took a beguiling portrait of Gilot using the multiple exposures he had deployed throughout his career. Other photos show Gilot holding Picasso’s drawings of her son Claude while the young boy sat in the foreground.

In 2021 her painting Paloma à la Guitare sold for $1.3 million at auction, a sign of the esteem in which her own work is held. If you wish to read more about Gilot, please visit this site devoted to her life and works.

A multiple-exposure portrait of Francoise Gilot, mistress of artist Pablo Picasso, Vallauris, France, 1949.

Gjon Mili/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Portrait of Francoise Gilot holding red gladiola, 1949.

.Gjon Mili/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Francoise Gilot drawing with light, Vallauris, France, 1949.

Gjon Mili/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Francoise Gilot with her young son Claude, holding drawings of the boy by his father, Picasso, 1949.

Gjon Mili/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Francoise Gilot with her young son Claude, holding drawings of the boy by his father, Picasso, 1949.

Gjon Mili/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Francoise Gilot with her young son Claude, holding drawings of the boy by his father, Picasso, 1949.

Gjon Mili/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Pablo Picasso casually carves a figure in space, 1949.

Pablo Picasso casually carved a figure in space, 1949.

Gjon Mili The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Doctor Jonas Salk holding a syringe in the laboratory, Pittsburgh, 1953.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

An All-Night Prom at Disneyland, 1961

When Disneyland opened in California in 1955 after years of design from Walt Disney, LIFE magazine proclaimed it “the stuff children’s dreams are made on.”

Six years later both the park and the dreamers had grown up enough that Disneyland decided to host an event aimed at kids who might be outgrowing their mouse ears: an all-night prom.

The details of the evening are scant because the photos, taken by staff photographers Ralph Crane, J.R. Eyerman and Grey Villet, never ran in the magazine. But one thing is clear: the kids had a blast. With the spinning teacups, water rides, a big band, and romance in the air (and on display for some of the couples, especially on the carousel) all the elements were there for a magical night in the magic kingdom.

Take a look and see for yourself. And if you want to read more about the creation of Disneyland, please consider LIFE’s special tribute issue Inside Disney Parks: The Happiest Place on Earth.

Students walking inside Disneyland during their all-prom-night, United States, 1961.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

People attending the all-night prom at Disneyland, Anaheim, California, June 1961

J.R. Eyerman/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

People attending the all-night prom at Disneyland, Anaheim, California, June 1961.

J.R. Eyerman/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

An all-night prom at Disneyland, Anaheim, California, 1961.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

An all-night prom at Disneyland, 1961.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

An all-night prom at Disneyland, 1961.

Students getting their prom pictures during All Night Prom at Disneyland – Photographs of an all-night high school prom held at Disney Land

People riding the carousel during all night prom at Disneyland, 1961.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

An all-night prom at Disneyland, 1961.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

An all-night high school prom held at Disneyland, 1961.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

An all night high school prom at Disneyland, 1961.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

An all-night prom at Disneyland, Anaheim, California, 1961.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

An all-night high school prom held at Disneyland, 1961.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

People riding a gondola boat during an all-night prom at Disneyland, 1961.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

An all-night prom at Disneyland, 1961.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Students participating in a high school all-night prom at Disneyland, 1961.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

An all-night prom at Disneyland, 1961.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

An all-night prom at Disneyland, 1961.

J.R. Eyerman/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

An all-night high school prom held at Disneyland, 1961.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Band playing at an all-night prom at Disneyland, Anaheim, California, June 1961.

J.R. Eyerman/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

An all-night high school prom held at Disneyland, 1961.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Teenage boys sit at cafe tables outside of Tomorrowland during an all-night prom at Disneyland, 1961.

Ralph Crane/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

An all-night prom at Disneyland, 1961.

Grey Villet/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

When D-Day Was Breaking News

On June 6, 1944, the U.S. military and its allies launched a massive attack in Nazi-occupied northern France. More than 160,000 allied soldiers landed in Normandy in the largest amphibious assault in history, and 9,000 allied soldiers were killed or wounded in the first 24 hours of the invasion. The cost was great, but the moment stands as one of triumph because it began to turn the tide of World War II and led to the defeat of Adolph Hitler.

The invasion, which had been planned for more than a year, was obviously massive news, and D-Day and its aftermath was covered extensively in LIFE. Look at the June 12, 1944 issue and the the June 19, 1944 and you will find photos and reporting that goes for pages and pages. On this site you can see photo stories about England and France in the days before and after the invasion, a visual chronicle of the fighting that followed D-Day, and Omar Bradley’s return to Omaha Beach 25 years later.

Here we look at photos which show how the immediate news of the invasion spread. In one photo citizens read printed reports hung in the window of a Chicago radio station. In another workers at a manufacturing plant stop work to hear the historic announcement read to them. And then there are the newspaper readers, gathering to buy copies in Chicago in one photo, and in another reading about the assault in France on park benches in Los Angeles. Another photo shows British pilots in training, reading the newspaper to learn about the latest about the war they would soon be fighting in.

Today if such an invasion happened we would be planted in front of our preferred news channel or social media stream, getting battle updates by the second. But look at the faces of the people hearing the news back in 1944; the reports, however archaic the means of delivery, still land with that sense of immediacy. It’s another way of feeling the importance of the massive and bloody military operation that proved to be a swivel moment in the history of the 20th century.

A group of men read bulletins of the Normandy invasion posted in the window of the news booth of radio station WBBM, Chicago, June 1944.

Gordon Coster/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Workers at a manufacturing plant stop for a moment of prayer following announcement of the Allied invasion of Europe, aka D-Day.

Wallace Kirkland/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

People gather around a newspaper stand to purchase copies of the Chicago Daily News and the Chicago Daily Tribune, both of which report on D-Day, the former with the headline ‘Invasion On: 4,000 Ships Hit Coast’ and the latter with the headline ‘Allies Invade France,’ Chicago, June 6, 1944.

Gordon Coster/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

People reading newspapers with the headlines of the D-Day invasion at the Pershing Square Park, Los Angeles, June 6, 1944.

John Florea/Life Picture Collecrtion/Shutterstock

British pilots training at Falcon Field read a newspaper account of the D-Day Allied invasion of France.

Sgt. James Burns/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

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