Girl Scouts, 1939

From the New York Public Library Digital Archive: A photo from the 1939-1940 World's Fair, titled "Denmark Participation." Girl and Boy Scouts greet Prince Frederik and Princess Ingrid, according to the archive notes, but Frederik must have been touring elsewhere on the grounds. And that must be the princess front and center, wearing a stylish hat, cocked just so.  This link and photograph indicates the visit to New York by the royal couple occurred in May 1939.

History shadows this photograph. All hell was breaking loose in Europe, and the Nazis would occupy Denmark April 9, 1940. Wikipedia says Danish leaders in 2003 finally acknowledged that Denmark's cooperation with the Nazis was "morally unjustifiable." However it's good to remember that, to its everlasting credit, Denmark refused to enact anti-Semitic laws or round up their Jewish population despite their occupiers' insistence.  History is complicated, no? I could use a box of Thin Mints right now.

You can scout out other interesting tales at Sepia Saturday; click below.

Katy Keene paper dolls

The Out of This World blog devoted to comic books has once again featured comic book paper dolls. You can see more high quality scans here.

Las Dulces de la Abuela, 2012

Translation: Grandma's Sweets. A contemporary label on a bag of candy that a co-worker brought back from Ecuador. The candy was a lot like Turkish Taffy, and came in tropical flavors, such as mango. Yum.

Hair coloring ads, 1936

Don't believe for a minute that women didn't strive for a youthful appearance even back in the days before Botox and plastic surgery became commonplace. These ads all come from the 1936 edition of Radio Stars. I was surprised at all the hair coloring ads; these are the ones I had time to scan in.

Women with straight hair want curly; curly heads like me usually want straight. In the 1960s, I tried a product called Curl Free with some success. In the 1930s, my thick wavy hair would have been the bee's knees.

Barbo! Coloring the gray at home is not something I would try.

Hey, bay rum in Barbo? What's that about.

An illustration of radio star Jessica Dragonette on the cover of the magazine. Artist Earl Christy captured the lovely waves in her au courant hair style.

You can comb through the other entries for Sepia Saturday by clicking the logo below.

André Fashion Studios, 1930-1941

Fashion Drawings & Sketches in the Collections of FIT and the New York Public Library.  

Fabulous.

Playing games

This week's Sepia Saturday theme is games. The vintage scrap above shows a girl with a stick, a ball and a wicket. Is this cricket or some other game? No mallet, so I've ruled out croquet, but I could be wrong on that count. Here's hoping someone can enlighten me. I found this charming scrap recently, at my favorite GreenFlea on Columbus Ave. and 77th St. in Manhattan.

Board games of the 19th Century had the most amazing graphics. This image (and the one below) is taken from the book, "The Games We Played: American Board and Table Games from the Liman Collection," 2003, Princeton Architectural Press. It was inspired by an exhibit of the Liman collection at the New York Historical Society. It was memorable for the replicas of classic board games set up on tables for visitors to play. The book is large and full-color--absolutely gorgeous photographs of board games.

Pillow-Dex: A forerunner to hacky-sack perhaps?

I adore this picture, and featured it on my blog about four years ago. Ida Wyman took this photo of girls playing paper dolls in the Bronx, circa 1948. They're playing with the "Boarding School" set. As a child I called them cut-outs, not paper dolls. Wonder if that was a regional thing. Or generational.

Cut on over to Sepia Saturday to see what other people are playing. Click below.

Spring frolic, c. 1880s