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Cesar Chavez’s Quiet Yet Complicated Approach to Leadership

May 4, 2023March 31, 2015 by

“Shy,” “self-effacing” and “introspective.” The words LIFE used to describe Cesar Chavez in 1966 may not sound like the qualities befitting one of America’s most effective labor leaders. But Chavez’s power, at least as LIFE observed in that year, was not to be found in displays of volume or might. It was his quiet leadership and deep commitment to nonviolence that empowered thousands of farm workers to transform their working conditions into something more humane.

This legacy has, in recent years, been both recognized and complicated. In 2014 President Obama declared Chavez’s birthday, March 31, a national holiday. Also that year, author Miriam Pawel published The Crusades of Cesar Chavez, the first comprehensive biography of Chavez, offering a more nuanced view of his leadership. For decades, Chavez had been held up more as hero than human, and Pawel’s thorough excavation of his life injects humanity—blemishes and all—into the narrative.

But when LIFE covered him during the mid-1960s, the prevailing image of Chavez was that of the quiet leader. Chavez, LIFE wrote, did not seek out the spotlight. During a 25-day, 250-mi. march to Sacramento, he “marched in the third row, largely unnoticed.” Neither did he dictate orders. When giving driving directions, one follower observed, “He doesn’t say, “Turn here, go there.” He says, “Now we turn here. Now let’s stop there.””

The son of a migrant farmworker, Chavez was exposed to the plight of laborers from a young age. He left school after seventh grade to work in the fields himself, so his mother would not have to. Addressing the kinds of conditions under which his family lived and worked would become his own life’s work, as he would go on to co-found the National Farm Workers Association with fellow labor leader Dolores Huerta.

In 1965, the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee with which the NFWA would soon merge to form the United Farm Workers of America launched what would be a five-year strike against grape growers in California. When LIFE dispatched Arthur Schatz to cover the strike in 1968, Schatz’s lens found the introspective leader the magazine had profiled two years earlier. Standing in solidarity with workers, he physically embodied his own philosophy on the work he did: “In organizing people, you have to get across to them their human worth and the power they have in numbers.”

Liz Ronk edited this gallery for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LizabethRonk.

Labor activist Cesar Chavez with grape pickers in support of the United Farm Workers Union, Delano, California, 1968.

Arthur Schatz The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Grape pickers, Delano, California, 1968.

Arthur Schatz The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Labor activist Cesar Chavez (C) talking in field with grape pickers in support of the United Farm Workers Union in Delano, California, 1968.

Arthur Schatz The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Grape pickers strike in Delano, California, 1968.

Arthur Schatz The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Cesar Chavez, 1968

Arthur Schatz The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Grape pickers strike in Delano, California, 1968.

Arthur Schatz The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Cesar Chavez, 1968

Arthur Schatz The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

United Farm Workers leader Cesar Chavez with VP Dolores Heurta during the grape pickers’ strike, 1968.

Arthur Schatz The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dolores Heurta, VP of United Farm Workers, during grape pickers strike, 1968.

Arthur Schatz The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Grape pickers strike in Delano, California, 1968.

Arthur Schatz The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Safety First, Fashion Second as Schoolkids View an Eclipse, 1963.

April 8, 2024March 19, 2015 by

The 1963 fifth grade class at the Emerson School in Maywood, Illinois took the smart approach to viewing an eclipse. Wielding cardboard boxes, the students demonstrated for LIFE’s readers how to safely look at this natural phenomenon.

During an earlier solar eclipse in 1960, hundreds of people had suffered permanent eye damage from looking directly at the sun. With help from the Illinois Society for the Prevention of Blindness, Emerson students avoided the same fate by building Sunscopes, pinhole camera-like contraptions that indirectly project an image of the sun. The magazine offered instructions for those wanting to replicate the project at home:

To build your own, get a carton and cut a hole in one side, big enough to poke your head through. Paste white paper on the inside surface that you will be facing. Then punch a pinhole into the opposite side, high enough so that the little shaft of light will miss your head. For a sharper image you can make a better pinhole by cutting a one inch square hole in the carton, taping a piece of aluminum foil over this hole and then making the pinhole in the foil. Finally, tape the box shut and cover all light leaks with black tape.

A final word to the wise from LIFE: “Don’t forget to come out for fresh air.”

Liz Ronk edited this gallery for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LizabethRonk.

Fifth-graders at the Emerson School in Maywood, Ill. lined up with their backs to the sun, their eclipse-watching boxes over their heads.

Francis Miller The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

At work, building the eclipse-viewing contraption.

Francis Miller The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

In their Maywood, Ill. classroom John Travelstead pasted white paper inside box while Eddie Clemmons tried on the head-hole for size.

Francis Miller The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A student poked a hole in his sunscope.

Francis Miller The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The teacher explained how a sunscope works.

Francis Miller The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Cutting out a head-sized hole.

Francis Miller The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Trying on a sunscope.

Francis Miller The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

These students all tested their sunscopes at once.

Francis Miller The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Heading outside, bearing sunscopes.

Francis Miller The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Students with their sunscopes.

Francis Miller The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Students and sunscopes all in a row.

Francis Miller The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Scary Movie? 152 Black Cats at an Audition

December 5, 2019March 13, 2015 by

When it comes to four-legged thespians, canines have generally achieved a greater level of fame than their feline rivals. We remember Lassie, Benji and Toto, and more recently Marley and Skip. But cats seem to face a steeper path to Hollywood stardom. Blame it on the lack of good roles.

One role, however—the title character in Edgar Allen Poe’s 1843 short story The Black Cat—offered theatrically inclined kitties a chance to break through. In the story, the cat’s owner plasters him into a wall, along with his murdered wife. Eventually, the animal’s mewing from beyond the grave leads investigators to the woman’s body. The film adaptation, which would appear in the 1962 horror compilation Tales of Terror, adjusted the storyline by weaving in elements of another Poe tale.

Exactly 152 cats showed up for the audition, all of them “considerably less nervous than their owners.” Several were disqualified thanks to white paws or noses, but even for those left in the running, the day left dreams largely dashed. The lead role, it turned out, had already been filled by “a well-known professional cat.” Seven lucky extras, selected on account of having the meanest looking faces, were chosen as understudies.

Their owners, whose ambitions for their pets might just have exceeded those of the pets themselves, couldn’t help but let superstition get the best of them. Although they acted naturally around their own cats, “many took pains not to let any strange black cats cross their paths.”

Liz Ronk edited this gallery for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LizabethRonk.

Black Cat Audition, 1961

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Julie Andrews as Cinderella, 1957

December 13, 2019March 12, 2015 by

More than 100 million viewers (in more than 60% of U.S. households) tuned in to CBS on the evening of March 31, 1957 to watch Julie Andrews played the title role in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s TV adaptation of Cinderella—the only musical the pair ever wrote for television.

Most saw the show in black and white; only a small percentage of viewers had color receivers. Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella served as a vehicle for Andrews, who was just coming off a stint on Broadway in My Fair Lady. Though TV musicals were common during the 1950s, they were mostly adapted from stage musicals. Cinderella, on the contrary, skipped the stage and went straight to TV.

The 90-minute program, LIFE wrote soon afterward, told “the story of a slightly sophisticated, uncindery Cinderella whose evil stepfolk are clowns and whose magical life is filled with music.” A review in TIME praised Andrews’ performance (she “fitted the heroine’s role as if it were a glass slipper”) and Rodgers’ music (“the hero of the evening”) but panned Hammerstein’s script (“which kept shifting uneasily between the sentimental and the sophisticated, and making each seem lamer than the other”).

Andrews received an Emmy nomination for her performance and continued to star onstage and on the small screen until 1964’s Mary Poppins launched her film career. Andrews saw a similarity in Cinderella and in her earlier turn as Eliza Dolittle. My Fair Lady, Andrews said in an interview, is “the best Cinderella story, really.”

Liz Ronk edited this gallery for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LizabethRonk.

Julie Andrews as Cinderella, 1957.

Gordon Parks The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Julie Andrews and Jon Cypher rehearsed music for the TV production of Cinderella.

Gordon Parks The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dancers waited to perform a grand waltz while a technician listened for the cue to start.

Gordon Parks The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Watching the star: Members of the cast gathered around a monitor as Julie Andrews sang A Lovely Night, a musical recapitulation of the royal ball.

Gordon Parks The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The 1957 TV adaptation of Cinderella, starring Julie Andrews.

Gordon Parks The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Authors Oscar Hammerstein II (left) and Richard Rodgers watched the show.

Gordon Parks The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The 1957 TV adaptation of Cinderella, starring Julie Andrews.

Gordon Parks The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

After the show Julie Andrews toasted to the rest of the cast and drank from her glass slipper.

Gordon Parks The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A Vintage View of Fun in the Sun

May 18, 2022March 10, 2015 by

Fun in the sun is one of the constants in American life. The impulses don’t change, even if the fashions do.

In 1947, when LIFE accompanied 10,000 young men and women to Balboa Beach in Southern California for a seaside romp. This day of surf and sand took place during spring break, and was marked by dancing, boat races, beauty pageants and sunbathing. The evening hours found students aglow in the warmth of bonfires as portable radios churned out the tunes of the day. (Top hits that year included “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” and “Chi-Baba, Chi-Baba (My Bambino Go to Sleep).“)

The fashion looks tell you that you are in another era. But not much else does, really. The pleasures of the beach remain more alike than not, regardless of the age that you are in—or the age of the beachgoers, for that matter. By the seaside, people become kids again, and that’s part of the fun of being there.

Liz Ronk, who edited this gallery, is the Photo Editor for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LizabethRonk.

Balboa Beach Party

Glendale college students partying on a beach in Balboa, Newport Beach, California, April 1947

Spring Break 1947

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

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Glendale College students at Balboa Beach Party in California, in April of 1947; Possibly for Spring Break.

Spring Break 1947

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Here is Every Single One of Barbie’s Outfits From 1963

July 16, 2023March 9, 2015 by

In honor of Barbie’s fifth birthday in 1963, LIFE photographer Allan Grant photographed each of her 64 outfits, from evening gowns to beachwear to a pitifully limited array of career options. If little girls were basing their future career aspirations on those attained by their 11.5-inch plastic counterparts, they could set their sights on being a business executive, stewardess, ballerina, nurse or babysitter. Oh, and they had to be white.

In the five years since she hit the market, Barbie had become a national sensation. She received 500 letters each week and had a national fan club. Fashion writers wrote about her wardrobe. She was also, LIFE noted, “the despair of nine million fathers who now find that Barbie has to be clothed just like wives and daughters.”

The entire wardrobe could be purchased for $136, equivalent to just over $1,000 in today’s dollars. Barbie’s most expensive outfit (red velvet coat and taffeta ball gown) rang in at $5, two dollars more than it cost to buy the doll herself.

In the following years, Mattel steadily increased Barbie’s career options, adding student teacher and astronaut in the 1960s, surgeon in the ’70s, and everything from McDonald’s cashier to presidential candidate since then. Barbies of other races were also introduced to the line, although early dolls were criticized for using white head molds and changing skin color, but not other features.

And in 2023 it became time for Barbie to hit the big screen.

Barbie may only be a toy, but the messages children pick up from playing with her can stay with them long after they put her to sleep in her Barbie Dream House. Now if only something could be done about those proportions.

LIFE Magazine, August 23, 1963

LIFE Magazine

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