Flashback - National Geographic Magazine

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Flashback

Each month, National Geographic features a photograph from our archives in Flashback. Browse through the galleries of historical images for a view into our past.

/flashback/2009/img/FB-big-plant-714.jpg /flashback/2009/img/FB-big-plant-60.jpg Photograph by Wide World Photos, Inc., National Geographic Stock BIG BLOOM In the Indonesian wilds, the six-foot-plus flower of the Amorphophallus titanium, or krubi plant, emits an odor like rotting flesh to lure pollinating carrion beetles. At the New York Botanical Garden in 1937, it attracted crowds instead. Despite tender care and frequent repotting, this krubi had not flowered since the garden's acquisition of its 60-pound tuber in 1932. By 1937 the tuber had packed on another 53 pounds—and its blossoming proved a surprise. Though the garden's botanists coaxed a second krubi into flower in 1939, and several of the plants remain in its collection, no A. titanium has bloomed there since. —Margaret G. Zackowitz]]> /flashback/2009/img/FB-roman-bridge-714.jpg /flashback/2009/img/FB-roman-bridge-60.jpg Photograph by Max von Oppenheim, National Geographic Stock ABRIDGED An ancient Roman bridge spanned the Wadi al Murr near Mosul, Iraq, in the 1920s. Credited to German archaeologist Max von Oppenheim, this image never ran in the Geographic—nor did his manuscript for a story about his work at Tell Halaf, Syria, found with it in the photographic file. Von Oppenheim discovered the site (which dates from the sixth millennium B.C.) in 1899 and conducted excavations there over the next three decades. He shipped several treasures from the dig home to Berlin for exhibition in his personal museum, but many were destroyed in an Allied bombing raid in 1943. Objects salvaged from the rubble have recently been restored and are scheduled to go on display next year.
—Margaret G. Zackowitz]]> /flashback/2009/img/1009-FB-bali-dancer-714.jpg /flashback/2009/img/1009-FB-bali-dancer-60.jpg Photograph by Andre Roosevelt, National Geographic Stock BALI DANCER A towering headdress and plug earrings adorn a 1930s Balinese djanger dancer, part of a coed performance that was "more of popular fun than of temple dance or disciplined art," wrote Maynard Owen Williams in his March 1939 Geographic article, "Bali and Points East." The dance's male participants "at times resemble a troupe of cheer leaders made up like Groucho Marx," noted Williams. "Syncopated movement, swaying forms, flashing fingers, and glittering crowns in high relief against deep shadows under the banyan tree—such is the djanger."
—Margaret G. Zackowitz]]> /flashback/2009/img/0909-FB-smoke-714.jpg /flashback/2009/img/0909-FB-smoke-60.jpg Photograph by Bob Towers, National Geographic Stock SMOKING HOT Sunlight focused on a reflective disk bounces back enough heat to light a cigarette in Phoenix, Arizona. This solar-cooker demonstration, part of the World Symposium on Applied Solar Energy, was one of 85 displays from 50 exhibitors on the grounds of the Phoenix Public Library in the fall of 1955. Some 29,000 people came to marvel at sun-powered sights, from electricity generation to furnaces to baking cinnamon rolls. But the Cold War may have prevented a warm welcome for visiting Russian solar scientists. "The Soviet exhibit created a few questions," note the photographer's captions. "There appeared neither the scheduled exhibit or exhibitor."
—Margaret G. Zackowitz]]> /flashback/2009/img/0809-FB-rocks-714.jpg /flashback/2009/img/0809-FB-rocks-60.jpg Photograph by William Henry Jackson, National Geographic Stock SPRINGS ETERNAL "Late that next afternoon we had our first close view of the enchanted land, when our party came upon the Mammoth Hot Springs," wrote photographer William Henry Jackson, who accompanied explorer Ferdinand Hayden on his 1871 expedition to Yellowstone. Jackson packed, muleback, some 300 pounds of equipment on the journey, including hundreds of fragile glass plates upon which he developed images on-site. Yellowstone's thermal pools proved to be more than just photogenic, according to Jackson; they also helped speed the photographic process: "By washing the plates in water that issued from the springs at 160° Fahrenheit, we were able to cut the drying time more than half." His pictures were instrumental in persuading Congress to declare the area a U.S. national park—the country's first—the next year.
—Margaret G. Zackowitz]]> /flashback/2009/img/0709-FB-veiled-woman-714.jpg /flashback/2009/img/0709-FB-veiled-woman-60.jpg Photograph by Lewis W. Hine, National Geographic Stock SEARCHING FOR HOME In 1918, New York photographer Lewis Hine—already known for his haunting portraits of Ellis Island immigrants and child laborers—arrived in Paris. He'd been hired by the American Red Cross to document its European relief efforts. In the waning months of World War I and after the armistice, Hine traveled through France, Belgium, and the Balkans shooting the shattered continent. He photographed this young Serbian refugee in the town of Grdjelitza. Text accompanying additional Grdjelitza photos by Hine notes: "With not even a roof over their heads, these families were finding their way back home on foot from northern Serbia where the Austrians and Germans had sent them to produce food for the enemy … When these people reach home, it will not be home, but simply ruins."
—Margaret G. Zackowitz]]> /flashback/2009/img/0609-FB-store-714.jpg /flashback/2009/img/0609-FB-store-60.jpg Photograph by J. Baylor Roberts, National Geographic Stock EYES ON THE PIES Patrons line up "like payday depositors" in a bank, waiting to drop a few nickels in a slot for favorites like baked beans and Salisbury steak, freshly made each day and kept in "post-officelike boxes." This New York City Automat, described in the March 1942 National Geographic, was part of an East Coast chain that sold 72,000 pieces of pie a day. Inspired by German "waiterless restaurants," Joseph V. Horn and Frank Hardart opened the first U.S. Automat in Philadelphia in 1902 and soon built an empire. But by the '60s, other fast-food joints were luring customers; the last Manhattan outlet closed in 1991. Automats live on in Amsterdam and returned to New York in 2006 at an East Village locale.
—Marc Silver]]> /flashback/2009/img/0509-FB-714.jpg /flashback/2009/img/0509-FB-60.jpg Photograph by Robert E. Peary, National Geographic Stock ARCTIC FIX A local woman mends the fur jackets of Robert Peary's team. He slept fitfully that night—"owing to bugs!" he wrote—during a Greenland expedition in 1894-95. The U.S. Navy commander identified her as "Ahhu, the plump comfortable wife of burly Ahngeenyah," whom he met in a Saunders Island village. With funding from the National Geographic Society, the explorer sought to become the first to set foot on the North Pole. A century ago, in April 1909, he claimed victory: "The pole at last.…My dream and ambition for 23 years!" Peary was doubted, but later vindicated. Historians now believe he came within a few miles of the geographic pole—near enough to deem his mission a success.
—Marc Silver]]> /flashback/2009/img/2009-04-FB-plague-714.jpg /flashback/2009/img/2009-04-FB-plague-60.jpg Photograph by United Press Photo, National Geographic Stock THE COMING PLAGUE A cloud of plague locusts descends on a field outside Melbourne, Australia, in 1955. Such swarms usually occur in years of plentiful rain, when conditions are most favorable for successive generations to reproduce quickly. But locusts can and do travel great distances, so even drought-stricken regions can be stormed by the hungry bugs. Last year was a particularly good year for Australian plague locusts—and a bad year for those who had to live with them. In Victoria state, motorists were urged to be wary of swarms. "As their fat-laden bodies can measure up to 42mm [1.6 inches]," warned Michael Case of the Royal Automobile Club of Victoria, "when they impact on a windscreen they literally explode. This leaves a sticky residue that may render windscreen wipers useless and can very quickly obscure a driver's vision."
—Margaret G. Zackowitz]]> /flashback/2009/img/2009-03-FB-fin-714.jpg /flashback/2009/img/2009-03-FB-fin-60.jpg Photograph by Roy Chapman Andrews, National Geographic Stock TAIL'S END "Again and again Sorenson lanced him, each time remaining a little longer and jabbing the lance deeper into his body. At last the gallant animal threw his fin into the air, rolled on his side, and sank," wrote Roy Chapman Andrews of a finback whale hunt in his 1916 book Whale Hunting With Gun and Camera. Parts of the text ran in the May 1911 Geographic, which featured this photo of a finback's tail being hoisted at a Japanese whaling station. In the magazine, Andrews described the scene at one such station: "The entire posterior part of the whale was then drawn upward and lowered on the wharf to be stripped of blubber and flesh. …Section by section the carcass was cut apart and drawn upward to fall into the hands of the men on the wharf and be sliced into great blocks two or three feet square."
—Margaret G. Zackowitz]]> /flashback/2009/img/2009-02-FB-cryptic-monk-714.jpg /flashback/2009/img/2009-02-FB-cryptic-monk-60.jpg Photograph by A.W. Cutler, National Geographic Stock CRYPTIC MONK Since the 1700s, awed tourists have filed past the mummified corpses—there are thousands—at the Convento dei Cappuccini, a monastery in Palermo, Sicily. This meditative friar led visitors through the catacombs. The picture did not appear in National Geographic, but a similar image by the same photographer was published in September 1924. The caption noted that each skeleton bears "a label of identification." The tradition of catacomb tourism continues today, with many thousands of visitors coming each year. By charging the equivalent of two dollars or so for a tour, and by selling books and postcards, the modern-day Capuchin friars earn money for their own expenses and to donate to the poor.
—Marc Silver]]> /flashback/2009/img/2009-01-FB-mt-rushmore-475.jpg /flashback/2009/img/2009-01-FB-60.jpg Photograph by Rapid City Chamber of Commerce, National Geographic Stock FACE TIME The third President of the United States was the second carved into the side of South Dakota's Mount Rushmore–and it took sculptor Gutzon Borglum two tries to get Thomas Jefferson right. His first attempt, located to George Washington's right, was ruined by a flaw in the granite. It was blasted off the mountain in 1934. Borglum's next Jefferson (above), on Washington's left, was dedicated in 1936. Much of the carving of Washington, Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt over 14 years of construction did not go as Borglum first planned. The monument's original design called for the Presidents to be finished down to their waists.
—Margaret G. Zackowitz]]>