LIFE asked Caroline Gutman, a freelance photographer who has shot for the New York Times and the Washington Post, to choose her favorite photos from the LIFE archives that speak to the changing role of women. Gutman’s work, which you see on her website, often focusses on issues of gender and economic equality. “As a woman and a photographer, my work is inherently linked to women’s changing roles over the last century, and it is only possible because of generations of women who paved the way,” Gutman says.
Her selections are a diverse group that show women in many different settings—at home, on the farm, at the race track and even in the pro wrestling arena. Here Ms. Gutman explains what attracted her to each photo:
Field Workers 1941
In the months after Axis forces attacked the Soviet Union during World War II, women in Russia took to the fields to help feed their comrades while men fought on the frontlines. This well-framed photo goes beyond time and place as it shows captures women of all ages with rakes held high and harvested hay at their feet.
In 1941, Russian women’s brigade wielded crude rakes to gather up hay harvest on a collective farm outside Moscow, helping contribute to the war effort against the Axis.
Margaret Bourke-White/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
Surviving the Dust Bowl 1942
This painterly depiction of a Dust Bowl-era home shows a mother and son finding comfort in each other’s company. She is likely darning a piece of clothing at a time when money was scarce, exemplifying how it often fell to women to hold the home together and make do with whatever they had.
Mrs. John Barnett and son Lincoln in a room of their farmhouse in the Dust Bowl, 1942
Alfred Eisenstaedt/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
Mildred Burke, Wresting Champion 1947
While today women have a prominent role in professional wrestling, for most of its history female competitors were rare. But Mildred Burke was an early pioneer. She held the National Wrestling Alliance’s World Women’s Champion title for nearly 20 years. Not only does this photo show Burke proudly wearing her welterweight championship belt, it also shows how comfortable she is in showing her feminine strength.
Wrestler Mildred Burke showing her championship belt, 1943.
Myron Davis/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
Motorcycle Meet 1947
Although less than 15% of motorcyclists in the U.S. today are women, female bikers have a long history. The founding of Motor Maids chapters in the 1930s gave women the chance to share their enthusiasm for motorcycles and bond with other female riders. This mother-daughter duo look happy and at home during a motorcycle meet in Laconia, N.H.
Motorcycle meet, Laconia, N.H., 1947
Sam Shere/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
Casting Ballots 1952
At the time this photo was taken in 1952 in Martha’s Vineyard, women had only had the right to vote for thirty years, after the passage of the 19th Amendment. This image captures not just a new right but a changing tide. Since 1964 more women than men have voted in every presidential election.
Women voting in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, November 1952.
Fritz Goro/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
Taking to the Air 1958
In the years after World War II women enjoyed new career options. This photo captures the pride of flight attendants-in-training, and also the beauty standards expected of women in the commercial flight industry.
Stewardesses in training learned proper grooming techniques during a class at the American Airlines “college” for new flight attendants, 1958.
Peter Stackpole/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
Betting-Window Fashion 1958
This visually striking depiction of betting at a racetrack highlights not just the fashion of the day but a changing attitudes about women’s pastimes. This fashion shoot portrays the women with exuberance, while the drably dressed man fades into the background.
Models posed at a betting window at Roosevelt Raceway in Long Island, N.Y. 1958.
Nina Leen/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
March for Women’s Rights by John Olson, 1970
The push to pass the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was a watershed moment for the women’s rights in the U.S, even though it was never ratified. The solidarity and resolve of the protestors in this photo walking arm-in-arm captures growing momentum of the feminist movement.
Women marched down Fifth Avenue in New York City as a part of the Women’s Equality March on August 26, 1970. The march, organized by the National Organization for Women, commemorated the 50th anniversary of the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment, which granted American women full suffrage.
John Olson/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
An example of Caroline Gutman’s work: Luo Peiqiong, an indigo artisan, stood for a portrait in her home in Rongjiang, Guizhou province, China, while wearing hand-woven, hand-dyed and hand-embroidered fabrics, on October 14, 2018. Indigo harvesting and dyeing are traditional practices in Miao villages in the region.
If you look at the breadth and variety in the photographs that Fred Lyon shot for LIFE magazine, you get a sense of the particular adventure of working for a general interest magazine.
“Every time the phone rang it would start me off in a different direction, usually some place I had never been or someone I had never known,” Lyon recalled in a recent phone interview.
Lyon, now as he was then, is based in San Francisco, and his assignments usually had a West Coast setting. From that perch he shot such varied subjects as news, fashion, food, and architecture. If there is any through-line that connects his work, it is that he managed to find joy and beauty in so many disparate situations.
Lyon, 97 years old, remains remarkably sharp. He is a lively storyteller who enjoys an amusing turn of phrase. Though he doesn’t go out on shoots anymore, he still makes and contributes to books, drawing on a vast archive of photos—he worked not only for LIFE, but for Vogue and numerous other clients. His most recent book, Inventing the California Look, out March 22, is about interior design. He has several other projects in the works.
Lyon recalls his LIFE association, which began in 1948, with great fondness. As a young photographer his agent had pushed for him to shoot for LIFE, he says, because once you are in that magazine, “no matter how bad the picture is, after that no one will ever question whether you are a good photographer.”
An early job that turned out to be surprisingly memorable involved riding around with a fledgling California politician as he introduced himself to the local population in his first bid for the U.S. Senate in 1950. Lyon sat in the front seat with Richard Nixon as he drove his station wagon from one small California town to another. As they reached the town center Nixon would starting playing march music on a phonograph in the front seat that connected to a loudspeaker on the car’s roof. As people gathered Nixon would introduce himself to voters and take their questions.
“He would confuse old people by doing the old high school debating gimmick of answering questions with other questions,” Lyon recalled. After they were back in the car, Nixon would loosen his tie, take the needle off the record and say to Lyon as they drove out of town, “Well, that’s all that shit.”
At that point Lyon sized up the future President thusly: “He has no style, and he has no future in politics.”
Some assignments were more fun, like a shoot Lyon did at the beach with two bikini-clad models. Here’s how Lyon recounts that adventure:
“When bikinis first became popular, of course LIFE was enthusiastic. Models were booked for the beach at Malibu. There was some sort of celebration the night before the shoot (there always was). In the morning, I sensed that I had done something unwise in the middle of the night. When I crept over to the telephone my scribbles revealed that I had booked elephants to meet the models at the beach. There were visions of the pachyderms holding each other’s tails and plodding out on Sunset Boulevard. My throbbing head could barely face bikinis, let alone elephants. The cancellation caught them in the nick of time, and even the models were grateful.”
Lyon staged another fashion shoot at a very different West Coast location—Alcatraz. The shoot starred two actresses from Point Blank, a cult classic crime movie that featured Angie Dickinson and Sharon Acker. The government had stopped using Alcatraz as a federal prison in 1962 and it had yet to make its transition to a historic monument. Lyon recalls Alcatraz as being cold and filthy, with papers strewn everywhere. He and the crew made it through the shoot with the help of thermoses of coffee and brandy.
“We managed the laugh a lot,” he recalls. “Maybe it was the brandy. My shoots were always happy shoots.”
Maybe not always. Lyon’s portfolio includes photos of a dark but fascinating piece of California history known as Synanon. At its outset Synanon, founded by Charles Dederich, was a pioneer in treatment of narcotics addiction, and Dederich is credited as the source of the expression “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” But in its later years Synanon morphed from a treatment program into a cult and a criminal enterprise. This fascinating deep dive into Synanon by L.A. Magazine opens with a chilling scene of a lawyer/journalist who dared to challenge Synanon being bit by a rattlesnake that had been shoved through the mail slot of his home.
Lyon shot his story on Synanon in 1969, before the movement’s darker impulses has taken over. Still, Lyon recalls not personally caring for Dederich. “He was an unpleasant man doing work that I realized was beneficial,” Lyon says.
And encountering characters such as Dederich was all part of the big adventure of shooting for LIFE. One upside of his association with the magazine was coming into New York and having occasional meetings the legendary Alfred Eisenstaedt, who stands as a giant on the roster of staff LIFE photographers. “He was to my way of thinking the perfect photojournalist,” Lyon says. “Everyone he met, he would try to extract everything from their brain right here and now.”
Some assignments resulted in valuable life lessons when Lyon least expected them. Once he was out on a more humdrum assignment, shooting the director of an opera company. Lyon said to him, “I hear you’re a hell of a fundraiser, whats your secret?” The director answered, “I tell people, Don’t die rich. Live rich.”
Actress Sharon Acker posed for a fashion shoot in Alcatraz, 1968.
Fred Lyon/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
Angie Dickinson modeled for an Alcatraz fashion shoot, 1968
Fred Lyon/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
Actress Sharon Acker posed for a fashion shoot in Alcatraz, 1968.
Fred Lyon/LIFE photos/Shutterstock
An opera performer was helped into his costume, 1948.
Fred Lyon
Opening night of the Denver Symphony at the Tabor Theater, 1955.
Fred Lyon
Richard Nixon as he was running for U.S. Senate in California, 1950.
Fred Lyon
A patient received radiation treatment for cancer at the University of California Medical Center, 1958.
Fred Lyon
At the I. Magnin Co. department store in San Francisco, the photographer’s son, Michael, tested a car during a pre-Christmas shoot, 1955.
Fred Lyon
A scene from the construction of an underground tunnel by the Pacific Gas & Electric ulitity company on the Feather River in Northern California, 1949.
Fred Lyon
A scene from work on the construction of a tunnel by the Pacific Gas & Electric utility company near the Feather River, 1949.
Fred Lyon
Students enjoyed recess at Sassarini Elementary School in Sonoma, Calif. in 1959; the school was designed by architect Mario J. Ciampi.
Fred Lyon
Students at the modernistic Westmoor High School, designed by architect Mario J. Ciampi, in Daly City, Calif.
Fred Lyon
Women modeling knit bikini bathing suits on the California shore, 1959
Fred Lyon
Vicky Drake, who worked as a topless dancer, ran a provocative but unsuccessful campaign for student body president at Stanford, 1968.
Fred Lyon/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
Vicky Drake, who worked as a topless dancer, campaigned (unsuccessfully) for student body president at Stanford, 1968.
Fred Lyon/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
Nancy Reagan, wife of Ronald Reagan, who was then the governor of California, posed at home, 1967.
Fred Lyon/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
Nancy Reagan, the wife of then-Governor Ronald Reagan, posed in the California State capital, 1967.
Fred Lyon/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
Charles E. Dederich, founder and leader of Synanon, 1969.
Fred Lyon/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
Charles E. Dederich, founder and leader of Synanon, wore a hat with a moving tetrahedron as he wrote on a blackboard, 1969.
Fred Lyon/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
Poached pears, photographed for LIFE’s “Great Dinner” series, 1968.
Fred Lyon/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
A Brazilian feijoda, featuring black beans, rice, sausages, baked bananas, onions and roast pork loin, photographed for LIFE’s “Great Dinner” series, 1968.
Fred Lyon/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
Gnocchi being made in Italy, 1966.
Fred Lyon/LIFE PIctures/Shutterstock
Pork was prepared in Hawaii, 1969.
Fred Lyon/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
The Lovejoy Fountain Park in Portland, Oregon.
Fred Lyon/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
LoveJoy”Fountain Park in Portland, Oregon, by Lawrence Halprin.
Fred Lyon/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
An image from a five-day trip down the Colorado River, 1969.
The news that a new biopic of Johnny Carson is on the way, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, is exciting for a generation of fans who grew up knowing Carson as the one and only king of late-night television.
Carson was not the first host of the Tonight Show, but he was the one who defined the job and the format. Before he took over the show had been around for eight years, with two other hosts, Steve Allen and Jack Paar. Their tenures lasted roughly as long as a one-term presidency. Carson took over and reigned like a monarch. He ruled for 31 years, from 1962 to ’92.
He began that reign in New York City, taping the show there from 1962 to ’72. In 1967, LIFE photographer Arthur Schatz spent time with Carson at home and on the set. The story never ran, but the photos in the LIFE archives paint an intimate portrait of a star on the rise.
Carson’s New York years had their own particular flavor. In 2014 Sam Karshner wrote about that era for Vanity Fair, on the occasion of the Tonight Show coming back to Manhattan when Jimmy Fallon took over as host. The story noted how Carson, a Nebraska native, often made jokes about the dark side of life in New York, to the point where the city council asked NBC to make him lighten up:
To an out-of-towner who bragged on an audience card, “My hometown of Cincinnati has much cleaner streets than New York, signed Miriam,” he answered, “Pompeii, after Vesuvius went off, had cleaner streets than New York.” He joked about the city’s high crime rate: “New York is an exciting town where something is happening all the time—most, unsolved.” Not even New York’s weather was immune to ridicule—“It’s so cold here in New York that the flashers are just describing themselves.”
The Vanity Fair story also talks about Carson’s city life—including his home, which is captured in Schatz’s photos, right down to the telescope Dick Cavett jokes about:.
Dick Cavett remembers Carson’s first apartment, at 1161 York Avenue, as a “four-bedroom bachelor pad over the river with his telescope there, [which he] claimed he used for astronomy.” He had a car and driver available day and night. In the mornings he would play tennis alongside Mayor John Lindsay at the Vanderbilt Club, in the Grand Central Terminal Annex; later in the day he’d make the rounds—Patsy’s, Toots Shor’s, ‘21,’ Le Club, Danny’s Hideaway, even the Playboy Club. Like a true midwesterner, he was a meat-and-potatoes man his whole life and loved the row of steak houses between Lexington and Second Avenues in the East 40s—Colombo’s, the Palm, Pietro’s, Joe and Rose’s, the Pen and Pencil.
In 1972 Carson left New York and moved the show to southern California to be closer to the celebrities who populated his guest’s chair. After Carson retired in 1992, late night was slowly carved up into fiefdoms, like so much of the rest of popular culture. Most viewers now experience late-night TV after the fact, trough viral clips such this one (which is awesome, by the way).
It’s safe to say, no one will ever bring late-night America together like Johnny Carson.
Johnny Carson in the Tonight Show offices in New York, 1967.
Arthur Schatz/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Johnny Carson in the Tonight Show offices in New York, 1967.
Arthur Schatz/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Johnny Carson on the set of the Tonight Show in New York, 1967.
Arthur Schatz/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
MERY GRIFFITH AND JOHNNY CARSON
Arthur Schatz/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Johnny Carson and James Brown on the Tonight Show in New York, 1967.
Arthur Schatz/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Johnny Carson and James Brown on the Tonight Show in New York, 1967.
Arthur Schatz/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Ed McMahon, James Brown and Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show in New York, 1967.
Arthur Schatz/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Johnny Carson on the set of the Tonight Show in New York, 1967.
Arthur Schatz/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
MERY GRIFFITH AND JOHNNY CARSON
Arthur Schatz/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Ed McMahon and Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show set in New York, 1967.
Arthur Schatz/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Johnny Carson on the set of the Tonight Show in New York, 1967.
Arthur Schatz/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Johnny Carson on the set of the Tonight Show In New York, 1967.
Arthur Schatz/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Johnny Carson on the set of the Tonight Show in New York, 1967.
Arthur Schatz/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Johnny Carson on the set of the Tonight Show in New York, 1967.
Arthur Schatz/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Johnny Carson in the Tonight Show offices in New York, 1967.
Arthur Schatz/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Johnny Carson in the Tonight Show offices in New York, 1967.
Arthur Schatz/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Johnny Carson in New York, 1967.
Arthur Schatz/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Johnny Carson in his New York apartment, 1967.
Arthur Schatz/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Johnny Carson in his New York apartment, 1967.
Arthur Schatz/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Johnny Carson in his New York apartment, 1967.
Arthur Schatz/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Johnny Carson in his New York apartment, 1967.
Arthur Schatz/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Johnny Carson in New York, 1967.
Arthur Schtaz/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Johnny Carson in New York, 1967.
Arthur Schatz/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
“Debut author and single mother sells children’s book for £100,000.” So announced a July 1997 headline in the Guardian newspaper touting the record-breaking windfall novice writer Joanne Kathleen Rowling earned for Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. It was the first in a planned series of novels about a powerful young wizard drawn into an epic battle of good versus evil, and the article posited that Harry “could assume the same near-legendary status as Roald Dahl’s Charlie, of chocolate factory fame.”
Nearly two and a half decades later, it’s a safe bet that children are more well-versed in the adventures of Harry and his plucky best mates Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger than they are with Dahl’s Charlie Bucket. Rowling’s characters have become a part of the global cultural lexicon thanks to the fantasy juggernaut. It seems nearly everyone’s heard of the Boy Who Lived. “The characters were so funny and so very specific, and the world came alive on the page,” says Anne Rouyer, supervising young adult librarian at the New York Public Library. “It was one of those books you could sell to any kid, whether they were [an avid] reader or a reluctant reader. Even now, kids just discover them, and they’re just as magical as they were 25 years ago.”
Looking back, few would have imagined the extent to which that first book’s young protagonist—an English orphan whisked away from a life of drudgery and abuse into a world where staircases move, paintings talk, and owls deliver the mail—would become a dominant force in popular culture the world over.
By the time the novel was released stateside in 1998 as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, it had become as plain as the beard on Dumbledore’s face that there was something special about the passion with which young readers devoured the 300-plus-page novel. Suddenly, everyone under the age of 12 knew the story of how the dark wizard Lord Voldemort murdered Harry’s parents, leaving the infant alive but with a prominent scar in the shape of a lightning bolt on his forehead. Words like Muggle and Quidditch became common parlance, and—gasp!—reading was suddenly cool.
“As a public librarian and a literacy advocate, what I found most amazing about the whole phenomenon was how Harry Potter encouraged younger kids to read ‘up’ in terms of their age group,” says Jack Martin, executive director of the Providence Public Library in Rhode Island. “You had four- and five-year-olds wanting to read these books that were geared to [older] kids … Everybody wanted to be a part of that universe.”
For that first generation who discovered Harry’s adventures, the story felt “fresh and new,” according to Dr. Frankie Condon, associate professor of English at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, where she teaches a class titled Popular Potter. “Rowling created a coterie of characters who spoke in a very modern way to a new generation of children contending with new ideas about difference … There’s just tremendous skill in the crafting of the books that you have to be impressed with.”
Not surprisingly, Hollywood came calling. The first movie adaptation, released in 2001, earned upward of $1 billion at the global box office, transforming actors Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson—who played Harry, Ron, and Hermione, respectively—from young unknowns into tween superstars. The subsequent films were similarly successful: The saga’s finale, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows—Part 2, which brought the series to an epic conclusion in 2011, boasted ticket sales totaling $1.3 billion worldwide.
Not everyone was enthralled, however. As the franchise continued to grip the public imagination, some conservative religious groups took issue with children reading stories that they felt glorified the occult; the American Library Association found that from 2000 to 2009, the Harry Potter novels ranked near the top of their list of titles that some found objectionable. But just as earlier attempts to ban comic books, heavy metal music, and video games had failed to sway young fans, the efforts to quash enthusiasm for Harry Potter generally met with little success.
Parodies and homages of all kinds proliferated. On TV, shows like Saturday Night Live, The Office, and The Simpsons all got in on the act. Colleges founded leagues devoted to the wizarding sport of Quidditch, though the game had to be modified given that players didn’t have the magical luxury of chasing one another on flying broomsticks. Musicians introduced “wizard rock,” a genre of quirky novelty songs inspired by the books. The group Harry and the Potters would routinely draw hundreds of spectators to their New York Public Library sets, where they performed such songs as “My Teacher is a Werewolf” and “Save Ginny Weasley.”
The founding members of the band also helped launch the Harry Potter Alliance with fellow aficionado Andrew Slack in 2005. The organization, which recently changed its name to Fandom Forward, was created with a mission to do good works in the world. “The books have helped to raise a very progressive generation of young people,” Condon says. “They teach young people to be wary of the violent exercise of power, not only over people’s bodies, but also over people’s minds. And they teach young people that the seeds of what we most despise and oppose are inside us, too.”
Yet the sterling reputation of the beloved franchise has been tarnished of late by none other than Rowling herself. In 2019, the author began to trumpet her support for a British tax expert fired from her job at a think tank over statements she had made on Twitter that some believe are transphobic. Rowling subsequently published a 3,600-word essay titled “J. K. Rowling Writes about Her Reasons for Speaking Out on Sex and Gender Issues.” In the piece, she claimed “empathy” for trans people, but she also included talking points often used by those who oppose LGBTQ+ rights. For many, it’s a perplexing turn of events—after all, in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Dumbledore admonishes: “It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be!”
“I can’t explain that or justify it,” Condon says. “I can say that it threatens the legacy of the books. Of course, there’s a long history of writers saying and doing terrible things, even as they produce what have been received as great works of art. In this case, these are young people who this writer helped to raise up who … will have to [decide] whether they can turn the message of the books against the messenger without discarding the books themselves. She’s presented her readers, the people who’ve loved her work the most, with a terrible problem.”
In response, Radcliffe, Grint, and Watson issued strongly worded statements supporting trans women. Other public figures, including author Stephen King, waded into the conversation, too, many eventually coming out against Rowling. Two major fan sites, The Leaky Cauldron and MuggleNet, removed images of the author and announced they will not write about her non-Potter creative endeavors. In December 2021, US Quidditch and Major League Quidditch announced a pending name change in response to Rowling’s “anti-trans positions.”
Still, the author’s controversial statements haven’t diminished the overall health of the larger wizarding industry. Warner Bros. is set to release the third film in the Potter spin-off movie franchise, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, in April 2022, and performances of the Tony Award–winning play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child have resumed after the COVID-19 pandemic closed theaters in 2020.
Visitors are once again traveling to theme parks in Orlando, Hollywood, Japan, and China to enjoy rides, shops, and treats inspired by the books, and Warner Bros. Studio Tour London—The Making of Harry Potter is attracting fans to the Leavesden soundstages on which the movies were shot. This past summer saw the arrival of Harry Potter New York, billed as “an immersive three-story retail experience” and said to offer the world’s largest collection of Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts products.
The continued appetite might simply speak to the powerful hold the books and the much-beloved characters retain over the minds of readers who’ve grown up imagining which of Hogwarts’s four houses they might be sorted into. Would they belong to Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, or Slytherin? For those fans, the books weren’t just entertainment—they helped them make sense of the world, and of themselves.
“Like many readers, I was drawn to the books because they tapped into my fantasy of being special, but they teach us about the inescapability of the ordinary,” wrote author and editor David Busis in a 2017 New York Times opinion piece. “Ultimately, though, I don’t read J.K. Rowling—or M.T. Anderson, or Ursula K. Le Guin—because of what their books have to tell me about life. I read them because these writers have mastered the ancient magic of storytelling, and because they remind me of what it’s like to be young, living in a world that seems both simple and incomprehensible. Childhood taught us that wonder is our only true defense against the ordinary. We forget that at our peril.”
This behind-the-scenes photo shows the doubles for actors Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Robbie Coltrane on the set of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, 2007.
This sketch by author J.K. Rowling showed the layout of her Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Nils Jorgensen/Shutterstock
This bookstore in Arlington, Va., was ready for the rush as Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the fourth book in the series, was about to go on sale in 2000.
Alex Wong/Newsmakers/Getty
Michael Gambon as Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, 2005.
Bill Hader played Dumbledore and Kristen Wiig was Minerva in a 2007 skit on Saturday Night Live.
Dana Edelson/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty
The franchise’s appeal extended to theme parks, as visitors enjoyed the Wizarding World of Harry Potter attraction at Universal Studios Beijing in 2021.
When first looking at Alfred Eisenstaedt’s photos from the 1939 edition of the Indianapolis 500, it’s the nostalgia that comes at you fast.
The race cars themselves really grab your eye. With their narrow bodies and open cockpits, the cars look as if they sprang directly from the imagination of a kid preparing for a soap box derby.
Then there’s the stands, which in one photo look as if they were hammered together by the Three Stooges the morning of the race.
The outfits are different too. One driver is so wrapped up in face coverings, not an inch of skin showing, that he could be the Invisible Man. The fans’ clothing, from the hats and ties to the undershirts, transport you to the late 1930s.
And what could be more old-school than the big celebrity at the event—not some reality TV star, but World War I flying ace Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, who later became an auto racer and president of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
The details in Eisenstaedt’s photos only enhance the nostalgia trip—the giant newsreel cameras, the sight of a driver at a pit stop drinking water from an actual glass rather than a squirt bottle, the sign that reads BLEACHER SEATS $1.
Of particular note to racing fans is the surface of the track, which was brick in those olden days. Today the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is still known as The Brickyard, though its racing surface is now paved with asphalt, except for three feet of brick at the start/finish line. Those bricks are kissed by the winners of the modern races as a ceremonial nod to the past—the history at Eisenstaedt documented in these photos.
The pictures tell the story of what appears to be an enjoyable day at the track—even if a share of the fans seemed to be napping on the infield. Eisenstaedt, while focussed on the scene more than the race, did capture the celebration of the winning driver, the legendary Wilbur Shaw. But he missed the sobering news of day, a mid-race crash that took the like of defending champion Floyd Roberts.
The story that ran in LIFE’s June 12, 1939 edition understandably focussed on the fatality, carrying the headline “145,000 Watch Sport of Death at Indianapolis Speedway.” LIFE illustrated the crash with frames of newsreel footage from one of those giant cameras.
LIFE’s story argued that the Indianapolis 500 was a Memorial Day tradition which needed to stop, and the writer’s tone suggested that the demise of auto racing was inevitable.
“American automobile racing had its heyday when the automobile and speed were new and thrilling,” LIFE wrote. “Its grueling tests and materials and innovations contributed mightily to automotive progress. But as speed became the possession of every motorist, as airplanes came along to outstrip the fastest automobile, car racing lost favor.” The story approvingly quoted columnist Bill Corum, who had written, “I can’t believe there is enough sport or enough scientific gain to justify the sort of Memorial Day Mrs. Floyd Roberts and her three children had yesterday.”
LIFE was wrong about the future of racing, which continued and thrived, despite a list of racing deaths that is now astoundingly long. Fans accepted crashes as a part of the sport. Famed Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray famously summed up the situation in 1966 with his pithy line in previewing another Indy 500 race: “Gentleman, start your coffins.”
While Eisenstaedt, more focussed on the characters around the track than straight sports photography, missed the fatal crash, he did capture the essence of the communal experience of race day, one that has been essential to keeping the sport alive.
A pit crew fixed a race car at the Indianapolis 500 in 1939.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The pit area at the Indy 500, 1939.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A driver at the Indy 500, 1939.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Fans at the Indy 500 in 1939.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
An aerial view of cars parked at Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the Indy 500 in 1939.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, a top fighter pilot during World War I who later became an auto racer and president of the Indianapolis Speedway, at the Indy 500 in 1939.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A scene from the Indy 500 in 1939.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Fans at the Indy 500 in 1939.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Fans at the Indy 500 in 1939.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Race teams prepared for the start of the race on the brick track of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, 1939.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Cameras recorded the action at the Indy 500 in 1939.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A fan napped during the Indy 500 in 1939.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Fans at the Indy 500 in 1939.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Fans at the Indy 500 in 1939.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A driver drank a glass of water during a pit stop at the Indy 500 in 1939.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Fans at the Indy 500 in 1939.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Cars traversed the brick track at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway during the Indy 500 in 1939.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Fans at the Indy 500 in 1939.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A man held up a scoreboard at the Indianapolis 500 in 1939.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Fans at the Indy 500 in 1939.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Fans at the Indy 500 in 1939.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Spectators lucky enough to have found a place to park on the infield of the Indianapolis Speedway napped on the ground, while others in the background watched from the viewing platform at the Indy 500, 1939.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
This rear-engine model race car was stopped by a broken valve early in the Indy 500 in 1939.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Wilbur Shaw was doused with water after winning the Indy 500 in 1939.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Printing a photograph on fabric these days is no huge deal. Crafters can do it at home, and online shops make it easy to order, say, a batch of T-shirts with a baby picture on them for whatever birthday party is coming up.
But once upon a time printing photographs on fabrics was a gee-whiz accomplishment, and LIFE was there to have some fun with it.
“Until now anyone claiming to have seen a dinner dress decorated with life-size photographs of the wearer would have been met with breath-sniffing suspicion or clinical alarm,” LIFE said in its December 8, 1947 issue. “Today, however, such dresses can be made and photographs of everything from animals to pearl necklaces are being printed not only on dress fabrics but on upholster, pillows, ties, bathing suits and lingerie.”
The story was an occasion for LIFE photographer Nina Leen to creaTe some amusing pictures, such as the one of the man falling asleep on a pillow adorned with the face of actress Hedy Lamarr, or the one of the model wearing a dress covered with photographs of her own smiling face.
The photo in the story that presaged how this printing technology would actually be used in modern everyday life may well be the one of the woman whose shawl has a photograph of her dog. While LIFE’s story declared that ‘For the textile industry photographic fabrics are the big news of the year,” the printing of recognizable photos on clothes has, in modern life, been more for novelty products than conventional fashion.
It’s a common story of technology: it’s one kind of advance to be able to do something, and another to realize maybe you shouldn’t.
Model Norma Richter showed off a dress decorated with images of herself, 1947.
Nina Leen/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
A model wore a shawl featuring a photo of her terrier dog, sitting beside her.
Nina Leen/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
Frank Sinatra pictures printed on huge bolts of rayon were created to cover pillows for adoring bobby-soxers, 1947.
Nina Leen/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
This wall hanging, showing linemen at work, was made for AT&T and hung in company’s New York boardroom.
Nina Leen/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
The Chrysler building appeared on the model’s tie as well as in the photo’s background, 1947.
Nina Leen/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
This process of converting a photo onto a fabric print began with the photograph of a flower, 1947.
Nina Leen/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
A textile factory manufactured fabric featuring the photograph of a rose, 1947.
Nina Leen/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
Part of the process for making a photographic print on fabric, 1947.
Nina Leen/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
The fabric featuring the rose photo was ironed, 1947.
Nina Leen/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
This lampshade was made with a photo of a flower printed onto fabric, 1947.
Nina Leen/LIFE Photos/Shutterstock
The handbag was designed with a photo of a flower, 1947.
Nina Leen/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock
A model wore a dress with a photograph of a rose printed on the fabric, designed by Martini to sell for about $70, 1947.
