The American Way of Lunch

Lunch is the meal most likely to be either wolfed down or skipped entirely. It is as true in modern life as it was back in 1955, when LIFE cast its lingering gaze on the oft-hurried mid-day ritual.

“At the daily shriek of the factory whistle, clang of school bell or simple growl of an empty tummy, workday America rushes eagerly to cafeteria, lunch box, bean wagon, or executive dining room for its meridian meal,” LIFE said in its June 3, 1955 issue, introducing a photographic essay on the topic by Alfred Eisenstaedt. That entire issue was devoted to food, and the American way of lunch, LIFE wrote, was seen as offensive by “….European gourmets, to whom the hurried inhalation of hot dogs, hamburgers and poor boy sandwiches is an abomination.” But LIFE’s conclusion was that lunch, “if no epicurean triumph, still fulfills its chief function—the revitalization of a busy nation.”

Eisenstaedt photographed a wonderful variety of subjects—from the solitary meal of a construction worker or U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to communal gatherings at the farm table or the midtown diner. Some of the midday diners enjoy themselves, like workers at the Boeing plant who not only eat but play shuffleboard during their lunch break. But the photo that captures the essence of the American lunch, then and now, is the one of actress Angela Lansbury.

Lansbury is shown downing a hamburger at the Paramount Studio commissary. She sits at a table with Basil Rathbone, her costar in the movie The Court Jester. The movie was a musical comedy set in medieval times.

Lansbury sits in full costume, for her role of Princess Gwendolyn. But the meal is no royal treat. between the burger in her hand and the expression in her eyes, she looks like just another worker in need of a break, and some sustenance. So, thank God for lunch.

And then, back to work.

Carpenter Chuck Haines relaxed on a sixth-story I-beam of a bank being built in Beverly Hills, Calif., while lunching on a ham and cheese on white.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

The Chock Full O Nuts in Manhattan’s Herald Square was chock full of people—many of them either shoppers or department store workers.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Army trainees stood in line for a meal of veal, gravy, mashed potatoes, greens, relishes, jelly roll and coffee at Fort Jackson, South Carolina.

Alfred EisenstaedtThe LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Army private John Lambert took a 40-minute lunch break during training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Harvest farm hands ate lunch served by their wives in kitchen of a farmhouse.

Photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Eddie Frank prepared to eat lunch next to his dog in front of his lighthouse.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Actress Mamie Van Doren ate a frozen dessert at the Universal Studios commissary.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Billie Ryan drank coffee as she waited for her turn at shuffleboard during the second shift’s 7:45 p.m. lunch break at the Boeing aircraft pIant in Benton, Wash.

Photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation.

The Methodist churchwomen had quite a spread at their covered dish social in Augusta, Kan.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Methodist churchwomen in Augusta, Kan. enjoyed their monthly covered-dish luncheon.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Emil Kantola, a faller and bucker for the Weyhauser Timber Co., warmed himself by the fire as he had a sandwich and coffee in Snoqualmie Falls, Wash.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Mailman John Ronayne wolfed down the 75-cent specia—spaghetti, roll and; coffee—at the stand-up sandwich shop in the Statler Hotel in

Mailman John Ronayne wolfing down 75-cent special of spaghetti, roll & coffee at stand-up sandwich shop in the Statler Hotel in Boston.

Secretary of State John Foster Dulles ate a healthy office lunch that included cottage cheese, an apple, lettuce and tea.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Philip Pearlstein: A Life in Art, From Student to Master

The paintings that Philip Pearlstein crafted as a teenager growing up in Pittsburgh during the Depression were complex and brimming with detail—much like the ones he would do decades later as a renowned artist. Look at his paintings of the merry-go-round that he would pass on the way to a Saturday art class and of the barbershop he went to in an African-American neighborhood, and you can see that this was not work of a kid who shied away from complex imagery.

Pearlstein’s paintings “Merry-go-round” (top) and “Wylie Avenue Barber Shop” (lower right) appeared in the June 16, 1941 issue of LIFE when he was 17 years old.

You can also see how, in 1941, at age 17, his work earned prominent display on the pages of LIFE magazine, after winning first and third prizes in a competition run by Scholastic Magazine.

Pearlstein, now 96 years old, credits his high school art teacher, Joseph Fitzpatrick, for getting Pearlstein and his classmates—many of whom also went on to careers in art—so enthused. “He talked about art as one of the most important things that the human race had done, and we took it seriously,” Pearlstein says.

Appearing in LIFE at age 17 gave Pearlstein a dose of notoriety, and he says it helped him graduate high school:  “I got passing grades because I became famous for those images in LIFE magazine.”

The LIFE appearance also shaped his military career. Pearlstein brought the issue when he went for his Army intake interview after being drafted in 1943, and after four miserable months of basic training in Camp McLellan, Alabama, instead of going off to combat, he went to Camp Blanding in Florida to help work on instruction manuals. Instead of carrying a weapon, he was creating guides on how to use those weapons, while also getting an education in the fundamentals of graphic arts from the advertising industry professionals who ran the operation.

Pearlstein was eventually deployed to Italy during the end of World War II, where he was put to work creating roadsigns. In his downtime he was able to visit the city’s great museums, where his art education continued.

After the war, Pearlstein and LIFE magazine again crossed paths. He had moved from Pittsburgh to New York, where he roomed with another aspiring artist and friend from Pittsburgh, Andy Warhol. Though Warhol constantly downed the cans of tomato soup and bottles of soda that would become icons of his artwork, back then both Warhol and Pearlstein were both working in graphic design. Warhol was impressed by his roommate having been in LIFE at age 17. When Warhol asked him what it like to be famous, Pearlstein responded, “It was only for five minutes,” an exchange which presaged Warhol’s oft-repeated quote about a future in which everyone is famous for 15 minutes.

In 1957 Pearlstein, who had been working in graphics and painting on the side, took a full-time job in LIFE in part because his wife was pregnant with their first child (they would have three) and LIFE offered health benefits. His primarily responsibilities at LIFE were in page design, but one day Pearlstein overheard editors talking about needing a graphic for a story on high school drug abuse and recommended Warhol for the job. Warhol created the graphic, but the piece never ran. Pearlstein’s LIFE tenure came to an end in 1958, when he received a Fulbright scholarship and moved with his family to Italy for a year, where he painted landscapes.

Through much of the 1950s Pearlstein attempted to paint in the Abstract Expressionist style made famous by such artists as Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko, and which was the dominant mode in the New York art world.

But after a point Pearlstein realized that wasn’t for him. He saw the abstract expressionists as people who were working through dark issues—but with his marriage, his Fulbright scholarship, living in Italy, he was a happy guy. “You have to be unhappy to be an expressionist,” he says. “I didn’t want to fake it.”

After coming back from Italy he turned to teaching, first at the Pratt Institute and later at Brooklyn College, and he began to gain recognition for the realistic nude portraits that would become his defining works. In 1966 he crossed paths with LIFE magazine again when John Loengard photographed Pearlstein at work in his studio for a story (which never ran) on modern figure painting.

Philip Pearlstein painted one of the nude portraits for which he became famous, 1966.

Photo by John Loengard/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Pearlstein describes his paintings as being driven primary by the balancing of graphic elements. Even in most of his figure drawings, the background will have plenty to draw the eye, whether it be a cityscape seen out of a window, a richly detailed rug on the floor, or random objects such as a blow-up dinosaur or a carousel lion. In a writeup of a Pearlstein career retrospective at the Montclair Art Museum titled “Objectifications,” the New York Times wrote about one such painting, titled Two Models With Four Whirly-Gigs, and how the interplay between the models an objects “yields a gripping optical complexity.”

That retrospective took place twelve years ago, in 2008, but even today Pearlstein is still at it. When interviewed, he was on vacation with family for a week in Wellfleet, Mass., and he brought his brushes with him, painting watercolors of the wooded scene outside his house.

Even at 96, Pearlstein speaks with a vitality and clarity that would be the envy those years younger. Asked how he was able to stay so sharp, his answer was simple: “I never stopped painting.”

Philip Pearlstein

Painter Philip Pearlstein, 1986. (Photo by Jack Mitchell/Shutterstock)

LIFE Launches First European Auction

This November, the LIFE Picture Collection—in collaboration with Cornette de Saint-Cyr Auction House, Bring It To Light Agency, and Philippe Labro—will host an exhibition and live online auction of nearly two hundred unique photographs. This will mark the first auction of modern LIFE prints in Europe.

LIFE Auction Paris

This sale of 191 photographs is a unique selection of works by some sixty LIFE photographers from 1930 to the end of the twentieth century, including Margaret Bourke-White, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Andreas Feininger, and Gjon Mili. Each photograph will be a limited edition of one with a special embossed stamp. The black and white prints are all made exclusively using the archival piezography process and printed on Hahnemühle paper.

The French author and filmmaker Philippe Labro, co-sponsor of the event, shared his thoughts on the importance of LIFE in the exhibition catalogue. We were “all ardently determined to reproduce our lives à la LIFE,” he writes. “Was there ever a better title for a publication: four letters in white on a red background, a logo, a brand, an asset, a heritage? I remember when I was a foreign student on an American campus in the mid-fifties; every week we would wait with impatient anticipation for the new issue of LIFE…Reality was interpreted and depicted by true artists who probed contemporary times and were shrewd observers of current events and the famous: photojournalists belong to a truly noble corporation.”

“This outstanding selection, curated by Agnès Vergez amongst several thousands of
shots, are a perfect illustration of what LIFE was, not just a news magazine. Indeed
it was a breeding ground for the greatest photojournalists of the second half of
the twentieth century,” notes Jean-Luc Monterosso, founder of the Maison Européenne de la Photographie.

A catalogue featuring all photographs is now available online, as is registration for the auction. Selected images from the show are available in the gallery below.

Marilyn Monroe

A 24-year-old Marilyn Monroe, wearing a bikini top, relaxes with a script in Griffith Park in Los Angeles, California, 1950. (Ed Clark/LIFE Picture Collection)

Dust Bowl

Abandoned car and farm in Dust Bowl, 1942 (Alfred Eisenstaedt/LIFE Picture Collection)

Albert Camus

French author Albert Camus smoking cigarette outside Theatre des Mathurins where rehearsals of his play “Caligula” are taking place, 1957. (Loomis Dean/LIFE Picture Collection)

Surfer

Surfer racing into water with board in relay race at International Surf Festival, 1965. (Ralph Crane/LIFE Picture Collection)

Post-War Europe

American soldier chatting with a sunbathing German girl in postwar Berlin, 1945. (Margaret Bourke-White/LIFE Picture Collection)

Let’s Go To A Halloween Party (In 1941!)

In 1941 LIFE staff photographer William C. Shrout joined a group of kids for their Halloween mischief and festivities. His photographs show a night of activities not too different from our modern-day celebrations: pumpkin carving, games, bobbing for apples, and, of course, lots of treats!

Halloween parties increased in popularity during the roaring twenties, and even more in the late 1930s. A number of companies in the emerging party industry started creating party idea books, craft templates, and mass-produced costumes. Yet, as seen in the group photo below, homemade costumes were still the most common. Clown and skeleton costumes were especially popular, as you’ll see in the crowd photo below.

A party isn’t complete without delicious food. Bobbing for apples and eating contests were frequent at early Halloween parties, as well as a table full of sweet goodies like donuts and pies. Shrout’s photos show gleeful children dunking their heads into water and enjoying Halloween snacks together. Delight in this vintage Halloween party and we wish you many sweets this holiday season.

Children wearing costumes at a Halloween party in Zionsville, Indiana, 1941.

(Photo by William C. Shrout/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)

Children arriving at a decorated house for a Halloween party, 1941.

(Photo by William C. Shrout/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)

A boy bobbing for apples during a Halloween party, 1941.

(Photo by William C. Shrout/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)

Children at a Halloween party standing around a table of Halloween treats, 1941.

(Photo by William C Shrout/The LIFE Picture Collection via Shutterstock)

Children eating Halloween treats, 1941.

(Photo by William C. Shrout/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)

Children bobbing for apples at a Halloween party, 1941.

(Photo by William C. Shrout/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)

Girl with an apple in her mouth after successfully bobbing for an apple at a Halloween party, 1941.

(Photo by William C. Shrout/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)

Children scooping out the guts of pumpkins for a Halloween party, 1941.

(Photo by William C. Shrout/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)

A child wearing a pumpkin-head costume and looking through a window on Halloween night, 1941.

(Photo by William C. Shrout/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)

A group of girls carrying pumpkins to carve for Halloween, 1941.

(Photo by William C. Shrout/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)

A young girl reaching for an apple during Halloween festivities, 1941.

(Photo by William C. Shrout/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)

A group of children walking through a graveyard on Halloween night, 1941.

(Photo by William C. Shrout/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)

A child wearing a pumpkin head costume during a Halloween party, 1941.

(Photo by William C. Shrout/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)

A boy wearing a paper bag Halloween costume, 1941.

(Photo by William C. Shrout/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)

A group of children running away after being scared on Halloween night, 1941.

(Photo by William C. Shrout/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)

Children playing ‘pin the tail on the donkey’ during a Halloween party, 1941.

(Photo by William C. Shrout/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)

Boy sucking on a lollipop during a Halloween party, 1941.

(Photo by William C. Shrout/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)

A police officer catching two boys moving a table during their Halloween night mischief in Zionsville, Indiana, 1941.

(Photo by William C. Shrout/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)

LIFE’s Classic Halloween Cover: George Silk’s ‘Crooked Lens’

During LIFE’s near 40-year history as a weekly publication, it produced one Halloween cover story. The cover, an experimental photograph taken by LIFE staffer George Silk, is a skeleton-costumed boy leaping into the air with a pumpkin.   

LIFE magazine cover from October 31, 1960.

(Photo by George Silk/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)

Most of LIFE’s covers featured current events, politics or celebrities. This makes the October 31, 1960 issue unique: the Halloween photographs were an artistic spread, free from an accompanying news article. Each image grouping was composed across double pages of the magazine and was paired with short paragraphs of Halloween poetry:

“Listen! Was that a knocking? Only a trickster, you say, wrapped up in a shroud, and bent on a treat. Or masked impostors caught by a camera with a crooked lens.”

Silk’s ‘crooked lens’ was an altered strip camera. Strip photography, sometimes called slit photography, is a technique that creates a 2-dimensional image using a sequence of images over time. The final image is a collection of thin vertical or horizontal strips patched together to make one.

Children running in Halloween costumes.

(Photo by George Silk/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)

Silk used a strip camera to photograph running movements at the 1960 Summer Olympics, and was one of the earliest photographers to use the technique for creative use. In doing so he produced the epitome of Halloween. Children masked and cloaked, gleefully running to fill their bags with treats and goodies before the night is up.

As the original foreword in the 1960 issue advises, please enjoy this “gaudy gallery of characters who ride the night wind, clank skeleton shins and make a trick picture treat. It’s funny and it won’t scare the kids.”

A multiple exposure photograph of a child in a skeleton mask.

(Photo by George Silk/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)

Child in Halloween skeleton costume jumping in air.

Child in a skeleton costume leaping into the air with a pumpkin.

(Photo by George Silk/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)

Child wearing a pumpkin head running.

(Photo by George Silk/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)

Child in skeleton Halloween costume leaping in the air with a pumpkin.

(Photo by George Silk/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)

Children in Halloween costumes running together.

(Photo by George Silk/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)

Children in Halloween costumes running.

(Photo by George Silk/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)

Children in Halloween costumes running.

(Photo by George Silk/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)

Child in a Halloween clown costume.

(Photo by George Silk/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)

Children in Halloween costumes jumping in the air.

(Photo by George Silk/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)

Child in a Halloween scarecrow costume.

(Photo by George Silk/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)

LIFE’s Best Convention Photos: The GOP

Time and again, LIFE photographers such as Alfred Eisenstaedt, Bill Ray, Thomas McAvoy, Ed Clark, Gjon Mili and others found ways to capture the drama, tension and, occasionally, the humor inherent in big-time politics. And with the possible exception of election night, there’s no more dramatic, tense or humorous time (sometimes intentionally, sometimes not) to watch the strange, imperfect mechanism of representative democracy at work than during a national convention.

In recent years, much of the drama around conventions has been leached out of the proceedings. The way that COVID-19 has impacted the conventions in 2020 has added an extra note of nostalgia to the images of conventions from years past.

Here, LIFE.com presents a selection of LIFE’s best pictures from the Republican national conventions across several decades. More than a few famous GOP stalwarts are here—Ike, Nixon, Goldwater, Thomas Dewey—as are other long-forgotten pols who were players in their day, and the delegates who, in the end, provide both parties’ conventions with their real energy

Scene at the 1968 Republican National Convention, Miami Beach, Florida.

The 1968 Republican National Convention, Miami Beach, Florida.

Ralph Crane/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Scene at the 1968 Republican National Convention, Miami Beach, Florida.

The 1968 Republican National Convention, Miami Beach, Florida.

Lynn Pelham/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Go-go girl and delegates during the 1968 Republican National Convention, Miami Beach, Florida.

A go-go girl entertained delegates during the 1968 Republican National Convention, Miami Beach, Florida.

Lynn Pelham/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Arizona politician and future U.S. Attorney General Richard Kleindienst (left) confers with Nebraska's Richard Herman during the 1964 GOP National Convention in San Francisco.

Arizona politician and future U.S. Attorney General Richard Kleindienst (left) conferred with Nebraska’s Richard Herman during the 1964 GOP National Convention in San Francisco.

Bill Ray/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Ronald Reagan at the 1964 Republican National Convention in San Francisco.

Ronald Reagan at the 1964 Republican National Convention in San Francisco.

Ralph Crane/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Scene during the 1960 Republican National Convention in Chicago.

The 1960 Republican National Convention in Chicago.

Michael Rougier/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Not originally published in LIFE. During the 1960 Republican National Convention in Chicago, Martin Luther King Jr. leads a demonstration calling for a strong Civil Rights plank in the GOP campaign platform.

During the 1960 Republican National Convention in Chicago, Martin Luther King Jr. led a demonstration calling for a strong Civil Rights plank in the GOP campaign platform.

Francis Miller/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Scene during the 1960 Republican National Convention in Chicago.

The 1960 Republican National Convention in Chicago.

Michael Rougier/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Scene during the 1960 Republican National Convention in Chicago.

The 1960 Republican National Convention in Chicago.

Michael Rougier/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Scene at the 1956 Republican National Convention, San Francisco, California.

The 1956 Republican National Convention, San Francisco, California.

Ed Clark/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Left to right: President Dwight D. Eisenhower, his wife Mamie, Richard M. Nixon and his wife, Pat, at the 1956 GOP National Convention, San Francisco, California.

Left to right: President Dwight D. Eisenhower, his wife Mamie, Richard M. Nixon and his wife, Pat, at the 1956 GOP National Convention, San Francisco, California.

Hank Walker/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Scene at the 1956 Republican National Convention, San Francisco.

The 1956 Republican National Convention, San Francisco.

Leonard McCombe/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Chairman of the Republican National Committee Arthur E. Summerfield on the telephone during the 1952 GOP National Convention in Chicago.

Chairman of the Republican National Committee Arthur E. Summerfield spoke on the telephone during the 1952 GOP National Convention in Chicago.

George Skadding/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Control booth, 1952 GOP National Convention in Chicago.

Control booth, 1952 GOP National Convention in Chicago.

Cornell Capa/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Bertha Baur, a prominent figure at conventions for decades and a long-time member of the Republican National Committee, in an elephant hat at the 1952 GOP National Convention in Chicago.

Bertha Baur, a prominent figure at conventions for decades and a long-time member of the Republican National Committee, in an elephant hat at the 1952 GOP National Convention in Chicago.

Francis Miller/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Pennsylvania Governor John Fine (left) and Arthur Summerfield chat in private during the 1952 Republican National Convention in Chicago.

Pennsylvania Governor John Fine (left) and Arthur Summerfield chatted in private during the 1952 Republican National Convention in Chicago.

Ralph Morse/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Republicans hold an informal conference in a kitchen during the 1952 GOP National Convention in Chicago.

Republicans held an informal conference in a kitchen during the 1952 GOP National Convention in Chicago.

Cornell Capa/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Vice-presidential nominee Richard Nixon and his wife Pat talk with photographers during the 1952 GOP National Convention in Chicago.

Vice-presidential nominee Richard Nixon and his wife Pat spoke with photographers during the 1952 GOP National Convention in Chicago.

Ralph Morse/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Scene at the 1952 GOP National Convention in Chicago.

The 1952 GOP National Convention in Chicago.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Scene at the 1948 GOP National Convention in Philadelphia.

The 1948 GOP National Convention in Philadelphia.

Gjon Mili/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Scene at the 1948 GOP National Convention in Philadelphia.

The 1948 GOP National Convention in Philadelphia.

Gjon Mili/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Pennsylvania delegates to the 1944 Republican National Convention in Chicago pull cold beers from a tub of ice after a caucus meeting.

Pennsylvania delegates to the 1944 Republican National Convention in Chicago pulled cold beers from a tub of ice after a caucus meeting.

Thomas McAvoy/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Delegates listen to Herbert Hoover during the 1944 Republican National Convention in Chicago.

Delegates listened to Herbert Hoover during the 1944 Republican National Convention in Chicago.

Gordon Coster/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A model wears a bathing suit in a fashion show at Ohio senator Robert Taft's headquarters during the 1940 GOP National Convention in Philadelphia.

A model wore a bathing suit in a fashion show at Ohio senator Robert Taft’s headquarters during the 1940 GOP National Convention in Philadelphia.

William C. Shrout/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A young Republican rests on a sofa in the Hotel Adelphi during the 1940 GOP National Convention in Philadelphia. ("Van" is Sen. Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan, long considered a front-runner for the GOP nomination; instead, the Republicans nominated Indiana's Wendell Willkie, who lost the election to the Democratic incumbent, FDR.)

A young Republican rested on a sofa in the Hotel Adelphi during the 1940 GOP National Convention in Philadelphia. (“Van” was Sen. Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan, who was long considered a front-runner for the GOP nomination; instead, the Republicans nominated Indiana’s Wendell Willkie, who lost the election to the Democratic incumbent, Franklin Roosevelt.)

David E. Scherman/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

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