Page 61 – LIFE

Before Little Rock: Mob Violence Over Desegregation in Clinton, Tennessee, 1956

December 10, 2019September 1, 2017 by

The most famous photographs resulting from the conflict over school integration would be taken the following year in Little Rock, Ark., but in 1956 school integration was, as LIFE put it in a story that September, already “the greatest unresolved national issue.” The Supreme Court had ruled on the matter in Brown v. Board of Education two years before, but the implementation of that order was still being met with violence in places like Clinton, Tenn., as seen in the photos here taken by Howard Sochurek and Robert W. Kelley.

LIFE reported that the desegregation process in Clinton (a town that had been involved in court battles on the subject for years) had seemed to be moving relatively peacefully until a white supremacist named John Kasper came to town from New Jersey. He helped instigate citizens to rebel against the law that required the town’s white high school to serve citizens of all races starting in the new fall term that year. Though Kasper was sentenced to a year in jail by a federal judge in Knoxville, his influence had already contributed to mob violence that peaked that Labor Day weekend.

The situation in Clinton was bad enough that town leaders asked for state help. The governor called in the state police and the National Guard to help a local band of newly recruited deputies make sure the order for integration was followed. Even though many of the officials involved had previously acted to support segregation, they recognized that this law had to be obeyed.

The week of violence ended with a dozen African-American high-schoolers in class at the integrated high school. Though problems in the area would continue for months and de facto school segregation remains a serious problem in many places in the United States today, that September the presence of those 12 students was a victory.

“In spite of agitation, in spite of zealots and the misgivings of the majority, the pattern was changing,” LIFE noted. “This fall 45,000 Negro students were free to attend integrated schools for the first time. It was a slow, small, painful change but it began to look inevitable.”

A line of National Guardsmen faced off against a night crowd on Clinton’s Main Street.

Robert W. Kelley The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A mob rocked African-Americans in an out-of-state car passing through Clinton. For four hours the town police stood by helpless as cars were dented and windows smashed. A policeman persuaded part of the mob to attack only Tennessee cars.

Robert W. Kelley The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A group of teenage boys with signs on their car protesting school integration in Clinton, Tenn.

Robert W. Kelley The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A crowd attacked cars driven by African Americans to protest integration in the schools in Clinton, Tenn.

Robert W. Kelley The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The National Guard was on the streets during race riots in Clinton, Tenn.

Robert W. Kelley The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Deputies threw tear gas bombs and the mob broke up briefly but then regrouped, until state police quelled them.

Robert W. Kelley The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The national Guard on the streets, Cinton, Tenn., 1956.

Robert W. Kelley The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Fourteen-year-old student Ronald Hayden held his school books outside his home in Clinton, Tenn.

Howard Sochurek The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A scene from the African-American section of Clinton, Tenn., with some of the youths who would be going to Clinton High School.

Robert W. Kelley The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Students Robert Thacker (left) and Minnie Ann Dickey relaxed in the African-American section of town in Clinton, Tenn.

Howard Sochurek The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Major General Joseph Henry Jr. led the two Guard battalions.

Robert W. Kelley The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Pro-segregation agitator John Kasper, center, being led off in handcuffs..

Robert W. Kelley The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

White rioters stood around during the demonstrations regarding school integration in Clinton, Tenn.

Howard Sochurek The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The National Guard patted down prisoners in Clinton, Tenn., 1956.

Howard Sochurek The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The National Guard brought M-41 tanks to Clinton.

Robert W. Kelley The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Heading to school after the National Guard had moved into town and begun patrolling, ten of Clinton High’s 12 African-American students started the half-mile walk. Previously they had had to ride 16 miles to a segregated school in Knoxville. Clinton’s principal told this group, “You have all shown great courage.”

Howard Sochurek The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

National Guardsmen escorted African-American teens through the front door of school, while white students watched on in Clinton, Tenn.

Howard Sochurek The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A scene from inside Clinton High School on the first day of integration.

Robert W. Kelley The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

“The Halting And Fitful Battle For Integration.” From the Sep. 17, 1956 issue of LIFE magazine.

“The Halting And Fitful Battle For Integration.” From the Sep. 17, 1956 issue of LIFE magazine.

LIFE Magazine

“The Halting And Fitful Battle For Integration.” From the Sep. 17, 1956 issue of LIFE magazine.

Twenty-five Delightful Pictures of Cats

July 8, 2020August 8, 2017 by

In addition to the cats, these photos feature some familiar, feline-friendly humans: There’s a 1959 photo of Ernest Hemingway, who collected six-toed cats, with a cat helping itself to a glass of water. (Hemingway’s cats may have drunk more than water, with one letter suggesting the author fed one named “Friendless” whisky and milk when Hem was feeling lonely and wanted to drink with somebody.) And there’s Fred Astaire palling around in 1962 with the Siamese cat that fellow film star Kim Novak, also pictured, had given him. “Animals loved Daddy,” Astaire’s daughter Ava later told Vanity Fair‘s editor-at-large, Sarah Giles.

But it’s also clear that a cat can be a star, whether or not its owner is famous. For example, in 1958, Navy doctor Dietrich Beischer used magnet boots to train a kitten to chase a mouse upside-down—to get a sense of how humans would deal with weightlessness. Thus, the cat played an important role in the history of space travel. And as for a cat in a funny hat or a cat eating corn on the cob well, some things never change.

Here’s a look at 25 of the best feline photos in LIFE’s iconic archive of 20th century photography.

A kitten emerged from pot of milk after falling into it, 1940.

Nina Leen The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Aspiring ballerina Edwina Seaver relaxed on the sofa at home with Siamese cat Ting Ling, 1940.

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A cat nestled in a carrier during an air raid, 1941.

John Phillips The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Portrait of Blackie, LIFE photographer Gjon Mili’s cat, 1943.

Gjon Mili The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A husky Persian cat posed with his ribbons and trophy at the Atlantic City Cat Show, 1945.

Jerry Cooke The LIFE Images Collection/Shutterstock

Rudy the Dachshund and Trudy the cat engaged in hide and seek or ‘pounce on the dog” in prelude to a friendly roughhousing wrestling match between the pet housemates. 1946.

Frank Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Baby, the seeing-eye cat, 1947.

Loran F. Smith The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Cat on wheels, 1948.

Michael Rougier The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A cat named Monkey had a large hat collection, circa 1948/1949.

James Whitmore The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Nipper, the corn loving cat, 1951.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Russian-born American operatic mezzo-soprano Jennie Tourel sang as a cat named Blackie sat on a piano, 1952.

Gjon Mili The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sharon Adams, 10, played in a snow drift as her cat maintained its comfortable perch atop her head, 1952.

A. Y. Owen The LIFE Images Collection/Shutterstock

Dutch billiards prodigy Renske Quax fed cream to his cat, 1953.

Nat Farbman The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Fresh milk at Arch Badertscher’s dairy farm. 1954.

Nat Farbman The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Pets of the Lyng family: Mitten the cat, Tosen the dog and an unnamed mouse, 1955.

Jytte Bjerregaard Muller The LIFE Images Collection/Shutterstock

Composer Alan Hovhaness worked in a score-littered studio while a black cat nestled among the papers on the piano, 1955.

Gordon Parks The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Kim Novak played with Siamese cats that were used in one of her movies, “Bell, Book and Candle,” 1958.

Eliot Elisofon The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Naval researcher Dr. Dietrich Beischer tested effects of being upside-down for prolonged periods of time on a cat and mouse, 1958.

Grey Villet The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Ernest Hemingway sat while a cat drank out of a water glass on the table, 1959.

Tore Johnson The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Otto Preminger looked at stray cats while attending the Venice Film Festival, at which his film “Anatomy of a Murder” was shown, 1959.

Gjon Mili The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Black cats and their owners lined up for an audition for the movie “Tales of Terror,” 1961.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Ordinary striped tabby cats waited on a beach as a man went into the water to catch fish, 1962.

Carl Mydans The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Fred Astaire danced with his Siamese cat on his shoulder, 1962.

John Swope The LIFE Images Collection/Shutterstock

The manipulation of light created emotive and visual effects, 1963.

Nina Leen The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Poet Rod McKuen played a record on his stereo set while a pet Siamese cat nuzzled his face affectionately, 1967.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Celebrating Friendship: Famous (And Not So Famous) Pals

January 17, 2020July 28, 2017 by

Friends are the best. In good times, in bad times… in these times. Here’s a survey of some of the best friendship photos from LIFE Magazine’s archive of iconic 20th-century photography. Along with some ordinary folks on a fence and some improbable inter-species bonds, you’ll find evidence of friendship among some of the greats of film, stage and song.

For Rita Hayworth in 1940, friendship meant packing up jelly sandwiches for a bicycle picnic. For Lauren Bacall, it meant being gabbing with girlfriends in her hotel suite at the Gotham in Manhattan—a meaningful location, as LIFE explained in 1945, because she and her friends had gone there as teens to gawk at celebrities. They had once followed Bette Davis into an elevator and had also been thrown out for trying to sneak into a party, which drove Bacall to announced that when she was famous, she would stay there. (“She not only did that when she and Bogart came to New York in February,” the article noted, “but brought along her dog Droopy, an elderly spaniel, despite a house rule prohibiting dogs in the hotel.”)

For Jimmy Stewart, friendship meant returning to his roots, bass fishing with a friend in for a 1945 series on the entertainer coming home to Indiana, Pa., after four years as an Army bomber pilot during World War II. Jimmy “did not catch any fish but enjoyed himself anyway,” LIFE reported.

And for renowned jazz musicians Dizzy Gillespie and Benny Carter, recognizing their friendship was even easier, thanks to a signature handshake that, as LIFE noted in 1948, was often imitated by the devotees of their music. It’s no wonder: the rituals of friendship give you the reassuring feeling that you’re all in this together.

Actress Rita Hayworth (2R) rode bikes with her friends Minerva Griswold, Jane Hopkins and Virginia Hovey, 1940.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Friends sat on a fence and sang along to the guitar, 1941.

Hansel Mieth The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A stallion tried to make friends with a barn cat, 1943.

Hansel Mieth The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Jimmy Stewart (right) went bass fishing with his friend Clyde “Woodie” Woodward, upon his return from World War II, 1945.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Kindergarten children played in Hawaii, 1945.

Eliot Elisofon The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Lauren Bacall with friends at the Gotham Hotel, 1945.

Nina Leen The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A boy and his dog, Oskallsa, LA, 1945.

Myron Davis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Actress Joan Caulfield and friends enjoyed the sun while a reporter interviewed her, 1946.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Suzy Creech and a friend played “Red Riding Hood,” 1946.

Frank Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Teenagers danced at a party, 1947.

Nina Leen The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

War veteran Donald Sonius (R), an Iowa Univ. student, held the hand of his daughter Karen, along with his friend and fellow veteran student Charles Smayda.

Margaret Bourke-White The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

“Bebop” jazzman Dizzy Gillespie showed his friend Benny Carter how to do a special handshake, 1947.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Donald, the dog-loving duck, rode on the back of his swimming pal Rusty, a cocker spaniel, 1949.

Loomis Dean The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Good friends Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift had fun on a studio lot, 1950.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Young Richard Dale, left, began to adjust to his new environment when he found a friend, Ernest, during chapel services at a boy’s ranch.

Ed Clark The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Friends from the Children’s School of Modern Dancing played at the beach, 1953.

Lisa Larsen The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Former Confederate soldier John Salling, estimated to be 106 years old, sat with friends in Scott County, 1953.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A baby chimpanzee held a kitten at Dr. Albert Schweitzer’s hospital, 1954.

W. Eugene Smith The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Archery provided entertainment for a group of friends at a teenage party, 1956.

Yale Joel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Two young girls washed their doll clothes, 1957.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Hempstead High School seniors roared with laughter as they looked over pictures in their newly published yearbook, 1958.

Gordon Parks The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Judge John D. Voelker relaxed with friends in a tavern, 1958.

Al Fenn The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren with her pal, LIFE photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt, 1961.

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Friends walked on a summer day, 1962.

Robert W. Kelley The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

LIFE’s Loving Look at the Vanishing Cowboy, 1949

December 16, 2019July 21, 2017 by

When LIFE profiled a cowboy for the Aug. 22, 1949, issue, with photographs by Leonard McCombe, it was presented with the idea that he and people like him were getting ready to ride off into the cultural sunset. The land on which the cowboy once slept was already dotted with new ranch houses, and office jobs were looking more and more attractive as the post-war economy boomed. “Like the frontiersman and the forty-niner, the traditional cowboy is a peculiarly American type, now following them into an honorable extinction,” the story noted. “He is being replaced by feebler men, who refuse to work grueling hours, to go wifeless and broke to the end of their days.”

The story was billed as a “last look” at the “old-time cowboy.”

The man at the center of that tale was Clarence Hailey “C.H.” Long, a 20-year Texas veteran of the profession who found freedom in a life of solitude and physical hardship. He personally trained all 13 of the horses he used to do his job, and his home on the range looked “exactly as a moviegover would expect.”

But in that fact, LIFE acknowledged, lay one of the more subtle truths about the past and future of the cowboy lifestyle.

Even as C.H. Long was a living embodiment of a beloved, but endangered culture, he was already part of a myth forged by Hollywood and dime-store novels, not reality. He knew that the cowboy image that the world celebrated was sometimes more appealing than even the most rewarding liberties of life on the cattle trail.

And on his rare trips into town, he picked up magazines full of Western stories, which he dismissed as “claptrap”, but loved nonetheless, “forgetting his adventurous life to search for adventure in lurid accounts of wild affairs that never happened.”

Clarence H. Long was said to look more youthful than his age of 39.

Leonard McCombe The LIFE Images Collection/Shutterstock

At sunset after a day’s work, Long collected his string of horses and considered which of the young ones to pick for a training session.

Leonard McCombe The LIFE Images Collection/Shutterstock

Clarence H. Long, cowboy, 1949.

Leonard McCombe The LIFE Images Collection/Shutterstock

Bringing in a herd, Long rode slowly at its head. He and his outriders kept a careful pace so that animals would not stampede or trot fast enough to lose valuable weight.

Leonard McCombe The LIFE Images Collection/Shutterstock

Clarence H. Long, cowboy, 1949.

Leonard McCombe The LIFE Images Collection/Shutterstock

Clarence H. Long with his father, Clarence Long (right).

Leonard McCombe The LIFE Images Collection/Shutterstock

Clarence H. Long rolled a cigarette.

Leonard McCombe The LIFE Images Collection/Shutterstock

A calf ran off after having been branded, inoculated, and castrated.

Leonard McCombe The LIFE Images Collection/Shutterstock

Clarence H. Long, cowboy, 1949.

Leonard McCombe The LIFE Images Collection/Shutterstock

Playing with kittens at a rancher’s house, C.H. happily let them crawl all over him.

Leonard McCombe The LIFE Images Collection/Shutterstock

The only spot of shade on the empty prairie was the shadow of C.H.’s horse, in which he sat to rest his eyes from the glare and to smoke a hand-rolled cigarette. He only smoked “tailor-made” cigarettes in winter, when he would have had to take off his gloves to roll his own.

Leonard McCombe The LIFE Images Collection/Shutterstock

Beside his chuck wagon, cowboy Clarence Long read a western magazine, 1949. When he was through with the magazine he passed it to another cowboy. Such magazines were read and reread until the pages fell apart.

Leonard McCombe The LIFE Images Collection/Shutterstock

Long mended a broken fence post, one of the many tasks that filled his day.

Leonard McCombe The LIFE Images Collection/Shutterstock

The Aug. 22, 1949 issue of LIFE magazine.

LIFE’s Most Memorable Kisses

February 12, 2025July 6, 2017 by

Sometimes you need a reason to give another person a kiss. And, as was the case in probably the most famous kissing photo of all time—the controversial sailor kiss at the moment of victory in World War II—that reason can be a big one. Other times, a kiss is its own reason to celebrate.

How people started kissing is a mystery and why we do it is complicated, but it has been around for many centuries and shows no signs of letting up. From a child’s sweet peck to a lover’s smooch to a walrus’s whiskery wet one, the act is a language of its own. And as time goes by, in each of our lives, it is easy to see that a kiss is not always just a kiss.

Shadows on the ground of kissing figures with camera on tripod between, 1930.

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Two walruses kissing as they eat from a hand between them at the Brookfield zoo, 1938.

William Vandivert The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A man and woman kissing while geared to a lie detector machine to measure the emotional reaction, 1939.

Herbert Gehr The LIFE Images Collection/Shutterstock

Couple kissing in front of the Delta Tau Delta mummy at the University of the South, 1940.

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Actress Marilyn Hare being kissed by soldiers, 1942.

John Florea The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Multiple exposure of Deanna Durbin and Edmond O’Brien walking toward each other and kissing; from the motion picture “Tonight and Forever.” 1942.

Gjon Mili The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Couple in Penn Station sharing farewell kiss before he ships off to war during WWII. 1943.

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Mrs. Martini, wife of the Bronx Zoo lion keeper, kissing a tiger cub. 1944.

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Eisenstaedt’s iconic photo: A jubilant American sailor clutched a dental assistant in a back-bending kiss at a moment of spontaneous joy about the long awaited WWII victory over Japan. Taken on V-J Day, 1945, as thousands jammed Times Square. In recent decades this iconic photograph has engendered condemnation, after Greta Zimmer Friedman, the woman being kissed by the sailor (believed to have been George Mendonsa) said that the kiss was nonconsensual. In 2019, shortly after Mendonsa died at age 95, a statue of the kiss in Florida was tagged with #metoo graffiti.

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A little boy dressed as Uncle Sam, kissing a little girl on the cheek, 1945.

Frank Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Newlyweds Marshall Jacobs and wife Yolanda kiss after being married atop a flagpole. 1946.

Allan Grant The LIFE Images Collection/Shutterstock

Peggy Lee getting a goodnight kiss on the nose from her 4-year-old daughter Nicki at home. 1948.

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Baseball player Yogi Berra getting a kiss from his wife, Carmen, before leaving for the clubhouse. 1949.

George Silk The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Gallant tiger bowing to kiss the hand of flapper Barbara Pettit, 1949.

Martha Holmes The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Christina Goldsmith tenderly kissing a Weimaraner puppy, which she took from a litter of her father’s stock (he was a top breeder of Weimaraner hunting dogs). 1950.

Bernard Hoffman The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Josephine Baker receiving a congratulatory kiss on the nose from her husband, orchestra leader Jo Bouillon, after Baker’s show at the Strand theater during her US tour, 1951.

Alfred Eisenstaedt The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Jill Corey giving her grandmother, “Mamouch”, a kiss on the forehead, 1953.

Gordon Parks The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Irish McCalla as “Sheena Queen of the Jungle” kissing her chimpanzee costar, 1955.

Loomis Dean The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Elvis Presley tenderly kissing the cheek of a female admirer backstage before his concert, 1956.

Robert W. Kelley The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A University of Michigan student couple engaged in an impromptu kiss in the Union Building on campus. 1957. This was forbidden conduct because rules required couples to have both feet on the floor.

Grey Villet The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Richard Ramsey, a worker in cosmetic company, was covered with relics of lipstick kisses to prove that dyes in lipsticks are harmless. 1960.

Yale Joel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Steve McQueen kissed Natalie Wood’s hand as the actors met to discuss their new big-screen project, 1963’s “Love With the Proper Stranger.”

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Astronaut Gus “Virgil” Grissom kissed his mother after his successful Gemini 3 mission, 1965.

Ralph Morse The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dustin Hoffman kissed his wife, 1969.

John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Oberlin College students kissed in a co-ed dorm, 1970.

Bill Ray The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Rugged Rock Robertson, ‘Strong Man of the North’

December 16, 2019June 30, 2017 by

In 1953, photographer Wallace Kirkland explored the archetype of the Northern woodsman for LIFE Magazine, with a photo profile of the perfectly named Rock Robertson—”Strong Man of the North,” per the article’s headline.

Rock, at 31, six feet tall and 205 pounds, got his name from a grandfather who, predictably perhaps, had acquired the nickname due to his great strength. As a professional hunting and fishing guide, Rock Robertson regularly carried 300 pounds for miles and could pull off a moose mating call good enough to draw in the bulls that hunters wanted most. He once went more than a week without food, because of a storm, before walking 48 miles in snowshoes to get out of the woods. He faced the forest with a smile and a shrug, embracing the outdoors lifestyle that his ancestors—French-Canadian, First Nations and Scottish—had likewise lived.

“He has been known, when the mood takes him, to pick up a stove and heave it through a cook-shack wall,” the article noted. “But generally Rock’s moods are sunny and his broad shoulders are put to practical and picturesque uses as a woodsman and as a guide.”

Out camping deep in the Canadian north woods, Rock Robertson grinned through the doorway of trapper’s birchbark tepee.

Wallace Kirkland The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Robertson smoked some fish in the wild country between Hudson Bay and the St. Lawrence.

Wallace Kirkland The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Rock (right) and brother Harry arm-wrestled. After winning, Rock said, `He’s good, and I’m good.'”

Wallace Kirkland The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

On a portage Rock packed 300 pounds.

Wallace Kirkland The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Rock’s moosecall got answering grunts from an amorous bull who came up from half a mile away.

Wallace Kirkland The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Rock carrying a moose haunch. North woodsmen preferred moose to beef or venison.

Wallace Kirkland The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A battered canoe leaked furiously but was still afloat, patched up with spruce gum and boughs.

Wallace Kirkland The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A snared partridge flapped futilely after Rock pulled it from a tree.

Wallace Kirkland The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The fire broiled the partridge and also dried out a pair of wet socks dangling from the box.

Wallace Kirkland The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Seeing a black bear in the water, Rock paused to determine the size of quarry and to which shore he would try to herd it.

Wallace Kirkland The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

As the bear neared the shore, Rock raised his rifle. When the bear reached water’s edge he brought it down.

Wallace Kirkland The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Rock approached the bear warily.

Wallace Kirkland The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Bringing back the bear, Rock easily balanced the canoe on his head. Rock said he could walk for hours with this kind of load. `I sweat like hell,’ he said. `Man who don’t sweat get tired.'”

`Wallace Kirkland The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Rock Robertson with his wife and child.

Wallace Kirkland The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

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Twenty-five Delightful Pictures of Cats

Celebrating Friendship: Famous (And Not So Famous) Pals

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LIFE’s Most Memorable Kisses

Rugged Rock Robertson, ‘Strong Man of the North’

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