Shebas

I love, love, love anything involving the 1920's. It was especially a great time for women's rights. We got to vote thanks to the Nineteenth Amendment passed in 1920. Women took the workforce by storm, even after their men came home from the Great War. Women were also shaking off the old shackles of Victorian propriety, and started the processes of becoming men's social and even sexual equals. The 1920's brought about America's (if not the world's) love affair with moving pictures, and thus was born the "sex symbol," or as the would have said back then "It Girls." The original It Girl, Clara Bow, has to be one of my favorite figures in the Jazz Age. If anyone is interested in the subject of women in the 1920's, I would recommend "Flapper: A Madcap Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity, and the Women Who Made America Modern" by Joshua Zeitz.

This video was part of a recent post in Glamour Daze (one of my fav blogs), and I just had to share---it was so fabulous! It highlights both Clara Bow and Louise Brooks, the grand shebas of the 1920's. Enjoy! :)

It Had to Be You

As promised, here is one of the wedding photos from my great-grandparents' wedding in 1924.

The photo is a little discolored and faded from being under a futon for the last 50 years. I played around with the contrast and saturation to bring out as much detail as I could. I wish I could have scanned it. There are a lot of little details that aren't clear in this digital camera pic.

The men look so handsome in their tuxedos. I love the maid of honor's dress! It looks very '20s!

I imagined that this song was played at their wedding.........

Rosie and Friend

Another great rooftop photo from the '20s. The woman on the left is my great-grandmother Rosie (or as my family likes to call her Nanie Rosie). The other is the same woman from my earlier post La Bellissima Regina .

They're wearing the same dress! Was this planned or was it a coincidence? Maybe the store had a sale.

Calogero e Rosa

Introducing my great-grandparents, known in America as Charles and Rose, but I call them Nanie Rosie and Grandpa Charlie. They both immigrated to America from Sicily in the middle of Ellis Island's peak immigration period.

I'm guessing the photo was taken in the late 1920's. I'm not sure on the date, but it does explain Nanie Rosie's fabulous Louise Brooks hair style. :) (The woman in the background is great as well!) Isn't just adorable how they are holding hands?

When did men's hats go out of style? I think they're great. I love when you look at an old photo of a crowd of men, especially in the city, all you can see is an ocean of hats. I think they should come back into style!

I actually have their wedding photo that I'm dying to put up, but it's huge. It's too big to scan, so I need to get my camera working to take a picture of it. Hopefully soon! :)

La Bellissima Regina

I was going to post this photo later after I introduced my great-grandmother, but I couldn't help it. I'm in love with this picture. I found this photo with others of my great-grandmother from 1920s. This woman is in other pics with my great-grandmother, so she is probably one of her friends or family members. My great-grandparents lived in Little Italy, NY on Broome Street in the 1920s. That is probably where this picture was taken.

I think this photo is gorgeous! There are so many things to love about it. I especially love the juxtaposition of this elegantly dressed woman set against the dilapidated, urban background. It looks like she is a queen sitting on her throne.

I wonder how much thought was put into it. The composition is just beautiful...the levels and the textures... G'ah! It makes the art geek inside me happy. lol

Truly Thine

I have no idea whom these two wonderful women are. I found this photo in an old shirt box (hence the blog name) with a hundred other pictures from my grandma's childhood.

The photograph itself is mounted on some sort of mat board. The colorful designs on top are not original. They are stickers (when were stickers invented, anyway?) or things someone has pasted onto the board. If you look close you can see the original design beneath the stickers.

I don't have any idea when this photo could have been taken. It appears to be very old. The picture is faded, and the women's dresses are in a very old style. Maybe pre-1910s...? I'm pretty positive that it is from Italy....Sicily to be exact. My grandmother's family was from Vittoria. There was part of a stamp on the back that had something in Italian.

Can anyone help me date this fantastic photo?