George Skadding Photo Archives - LIFE

Pushing the Right Buttons: Inside Charm School for Elevator Girls

Bill Syken — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 12:13:17 +0000

In the 1940s the job of stewardess became increasingly glamorized as commercial airline travel became more and popular. That trend may have reached its peak—or nadir, depending on how you look at it—when the now-defunct National Airlines ran an ad featuring stewardesses and slogans like “I’m Cheryl. Fly Me.” Many women were not amused, and before too long the people who worked on airplanes were being referred to with the more professional and gender-neutral term “flight attendants.”

But it’s worth remembering that bygone mentality when considering a 1947 story that ran in LIFE magazine headlined “Store Pretties Up Its Elevator Girls.” The Chicago department store Marshall Field and Co. wanted to give its elevator operators the same kind of glamorous profile as the stewardesses of the time.

To achieve that goal, the store began to give its elevator operators special training, and it was about more than pressing buttons. Here’s how LIFE described it:

Twice a week a small group of operators leave their high-powered lifts and are sent to be kneaded, pummeled and painted in a flossy charm school in the Loop. During the eight-week course the girls not only learn where and how to take off unflattering bulges and how to blend a powder base into the hairline but also how to walk, sit and operate the elevator car decorously. They are also taught how to enunciate clearly merchandise items like “lingerie, bric-a-brac and budget millinery.”

LIFE photographer George Skadding was given a behind the scenes look at the training and the makeovers these operators received. His photo of women in their uniforms stationed outside elevator doors almost has the feel of a chorus line. The story noted that at least one former Marshall Field elevator operator had become a star of screen and stage—her name was Dorothy Lamour.

But for the vast majority who didn’t, their humble role attained, for a time, a touch of glamour. And the efforts did not go unnoticed.

In January 2025 on a Facebook page dedicated to Marshall Field & Co., one poster talked about her fond memories of being an operator. A fan responded “You were one of the most wonderful, talented, perfect women in the world. Oh, how, when I was 5, I wanted to grow up to be one of you . . . and I still wish it had been possible.”

In the 1960s the store replaced its elevators with more modern models and operators were phased out.

The elevator girls at the Marshall Fields department store in Chicago, 1947.

George Skadding/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Elevator girls at the Marshall Fields department store in Chicago went through a training program which included lessons in makeup and other beauty skills, 1947.

George Skadding/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Elevator girls at the Marshall Fields department store in Chicago went through a training and beauty program; here operator Ann Vratarich received a new hairdo, 1947.

George Skadding/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Elevator girls at the Marshall Fields department store in Chicago went through a training program; this photo demonstrated the wrong postures (too breezy, bent, leg in air) for an operator, 1947.

George Skadding/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Elevator girls at the Marshall Fields department store in Chicago went through a training program, with this photo demonstrating the proper posture (straight and modest), 1947.

George Skadding/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The elevator girls at the Marshall Fields department store in Chicago worked on “reducing exercises” as part of their training program, 1947.

George Skadding/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Elevator girls at the Marshall Fields department store in Chicago, 1947.

George Skadding/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

An elevator operator from the Marshall Fields department store in Chicago, 1947.

George Skadding/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Elevator girls at the Marshall Fields department store in Chicago went through a special training program, 1947.

George Skadding/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Elevator girls from Marshall Fields department store in Chicago showed off their look after attending charm school, 1947.

George Skadding/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Elevator operators at the Marshall Fields department store, 1947

George Skadding/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

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Before Moo Deng: Little Hippos in LIFE

Bill Syken — Fri, 13 Dec 2024 17:03:23 +0000

Hippos are the third largest mammal on the planet, behind only the elephant and the white rhino. But there is a variety of hippo known as the pygmy hippo that is tiny by comparison, especially when it is very young. And that makes the animal a natural curiosity. Witness the popularity of Moo Deng, a pygmy hippo who lives in a Thailand zoo and became a viral sensation in 2024.

The editors of LIFE shared the fascination.

The magazine’s June 2, 1941 issue included a story headlined “World’s Smallest Hippopotamus Arrives in U.S. From Liberia.” The pygmy hippo in question had been abandoned by its mother, found by Liberian natives and turned over to a man named Silas E. Johnson, who worked in Liberia and was an amateur zoologist.

Johnson then sailed to New York City for his “biannual three-month vacation in the U.S,” according to LIFE, and brought the baby hippo with him. When the hippo arrived in America, he was two months old, weighed nine pounds, was 18 inches long, and had acquired the name Skipper during the course of his sea journey. Legendary LIFE staff photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt was there to capture the magic.

LIFE explained exactly what made Skipper so precious:

The rarity of Mr. Johnson’s pet lies in the fact that pygmy hippopotamuses, found only in Liberia, are stalwart fighters which fiercely protect their young….When he is full-grown, Skipper will weight about 400 pounds. Normal hippos weight 30 pounds at birth, three tons at maturity.

While Skipper was rare, he was not entirely unique. In 1952 LIFE featured another pygmy hippo that had come to the U.S. This little fellow was named Gumdrop, and he and his zookeeper were photographed for the magazine by George Skadding. Unlike Skipper, Gumdrop came to the U.S. in the company of his mother.

How rare is a pygmy hippopotamus? Outside of zoos, the animal’s primary habitat remains in Libera and other neighboring West African countries. According to an estimate in 2015, only about 2,500 pygmy hippos remain alive in the wild.

This rare baby pygmy hippopotamus, named Skipper, was abandoned by his mother in Liberia and brought to the U.S. by boat in 1941 in the company of an amateur zoologist.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

This rare baby pygmy hippopotamus, named Skipper, was abandoned by his mother in Liberia and brought to the U.S. by boat in 1941 in the company of an amateur zoologist. Skipper needed to be kept wet to prevent his skin from peeling.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

This rare baby pygmy hippopotamus, named Skipper, was abandoned by his mother in Liberia and brought to the U.S. by boat in 1941 in the company of an amateur zoologist.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Amateur zoologist Silas E. Johnson brought this baby pygmy hippopotamus abandoned by his mother from Liberia to the U.S.; during the boatride from Africa to New York, the hippo acquired the nickname Skipper.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

This baby pygmy hippopotamus, abandoned by his mother in LIberia and brought to the U.S. by an amateur zoologist, consumed a half-pint of condensed milk and pablum from a bottle four times a day, 1941.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A baby pygmy hippo named Gumdrop received a bath, 1952.

George Skadding/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A baby pygmy hippo named Gumdrop and his mother, 1952.

George Skadding/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A zookeeper administered a bath to Gumdrop, a baby pygmy hippo, 1952.

George Skadding/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Gumdrop, a baby pygmy hippo, was toweled off by a zookeeper following his bath, 1952.

George Skadding/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Gumdrop, a baby pygmy hippo, fed with his mother, 1952.

George Skadding/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

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A Boat with “Live Ballast” Required

Bill Syken — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 15:25:48 +0000

If you were looking for a relaxing afternoon on the water, the log canoe would not be the boat for you.

In its Aug. 9, 1954 issue, LIFE magazine wrote about a temperamental and demanding form of watercraft that was popular in the Chesapeake Bay area. The magazine described the log canoe as ‘fast, easily flipped, and tricky to handle.”

Tricky sounds like an understatement. In a log canoe the crew members had to place their body weight on boards that were propped up in the boat and extended out over the water. They did this in order to keep the boat from tipping. What’s worse was that if the winds shifted, the crew would have to dismount and move the boards to the other side of the boat and then mount them again, all without capsizing the boat in the process.

Here’s how LIFE put it:

It requires a crew of nimble-footed gymnasts whose chores are as precarious as a tightrope walker’s. Because the slightest breeze will capsize it unless the towering masts and a 1,000-square-foot expanse of sail are counterbalanced by human ballast, the crew extends boards out from the windward side and scrambles out on them to maintain the delicate equilibrium. When the wind shifts or the easily tipped craft comes about on a different tack, the boards must be shifted from one side to the other in maneuvers that require precise teamwork and add an exhilarating touch to the ancient art of sailing.

The log canoe may have required expertise to sail, but it was also picturesque, as evidenced by the photos taken by LIFE staff photographer George Skadding. And as impractical as these boats may seem, they continue to be part of the local flavor in the Chesapeake area today, with log canoe regattas running through the summer.

Log Canoe sailboats racing on the Chesapeake Bay, 1954; crew members needed to hang over the side to keep the boats balanced.

George Skadding/Life Picutre Collection/Shutterstock

Log Canoe sailboats racing on the Chesapeake Bay, 1954; crew members needed to hang over the side to keep the boats balanced.

George Skadding/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Log Canoe sailboats racing on the Chesapeake Bay, 1954; crew members needed to hang over the side to keep the boats balanced.

A log canoe sailboat sailing in the sea, during the race at the Chesapeake Bay, July 1954.

Log Canoe sailboats racing on the Chesapeake Bay, 1954; crew members needed to hang over the side to keep the boats balanced.

George Skadding/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

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A Synagogue on Wheels: Serving Far-Flung Congregants By Bus in North Carolina

Bill Syken — Tue, 05 Sep 2023 13:43:43 +0000

There’s a Yiddish proverb which says, “God gives burdens, also shoulders.” For Rabbi Harold Freedman of North Carolina, he found a solution to his particular burden—Jews spread out across the state with no local place of worship—by keeping his shoulder to the wheel. He drove a bus that had been retrofitted as a synagogue, allowing to him to meet his flock in the communities where they lived.

LIFE wrote about the “circuit-riding rabbi” in its Sept. 19, 1955 issue:

In many of the small communities and rural areas of North Carolina, Jewish families have been remote from synagogues and grown remote from their faith. Now the synagogue comes to them in the form of a specially designed bus which is equipped with everything from a lending library of 60 volumes on Judiasm to a battery-powered eternal light.

The rolling synagogue is driven by Rabbi Harold Friedman, who tours a 1,200-mile circuit each fortnight and stops in 10 different communities to lead religious instruction and conduct services for some 300 families.

The photos by George Skadding show that Freedman’s mobile synagogue, though cozy, was well-appointed, and even contained a small ark. Friedman’s work was underwritten by a group called the North Carolina Association of Jewish Men.

And the good news is that the investment in money and miles paid off. The Encyclopedia of Southern Jewish Communities credits Friedman’s traveling services with inspiring the formation of congregations in three of the communities he visited and reviving flagging congregations in three more.

Rabbi Harold Friedman drove a bus on a circuit around North Carolina to bring religious services to far-flung communities, 1955.

George Skadding/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Rabbi Harold Freedman conducted a service in his mobile synagogue that traveled around North Carolina, 1955.

George Skadding/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A young student held the torah as Rabbi Harold Freedman conducted a children’s class in his mobile synagogue that traveled through North Carolina, serving many communities, 1955.

George Skadding/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Rabbi Harold Freedman distributed yarmulkes to be worn in his mobile synagogue that traveled around North Carolina, 1955.

George Skadding/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Rabbi Harold Friedman drove a bus on a circuit around North Carolina to bring religious services to far-flung communities, 1955.

George Skadding/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Rabbi Harold Friedman, posing at the wheel, drove a bus on a circuit around North Carolina to bring religious services to far-flung communities, 1955.

George Skadding/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Rabbi Harold Friedman drove a bus on a circuit around North Carolina to bring religious services to far-flung communities, 1955.

George Skadding/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Children waited to be admitted to the mobile synagogue that traveled around North Carolina, 1955.

George Skadding/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Rabbi Harold Friedman drove a bus on a circuit around North Carolina to bring religious services to far-flung communities, 1955.

George Skadding/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

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Grace and Mayhem: Women’s Roller Derby, 1948

Fri, 13 Jun 2014 08:59:51 +0000

“It is a teeth-jarring sport for skaters who race 30 miles every night,” LIFE wrote of roller derby back in December 1948. The sport, LIFE continued, features “enough spills and body contact to gratify even an ice hockey fan.”

LIFE.com here features a number of photographs of women’s roller derby teams in Chicago, made by longtime LIFE photographer George Skadding. Known primarily as a chronicler of politics and presidents—before and after World War II, he was an officer of the White House News Photographers Association—Skadding clearly immersed himself in this particular assignment.

Maybe the open aggression of the sport was a tonic after years of covering Washington, where the assaults tended to be more buttoned-down. Whatever the reason, Skadding evidently enjoyed himself while chronicling these skaters. And according to LIFE, so did the fans at the rink.

“The rules of this spectacle appear to have been cribbed from six-day bike racing . . . and professional wrestling. . . . Audiences have already learned to hiss the sport’s more clumsy villains, but lady skaters are not ostracized when they kick one another in the face.”

Is it any wonder that, while always on the fringes of sporting culture, roller derby still endures?

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

A skillful shoulder block thrown by ‘Fuzzy’ Buchek (left) foiled an attempt by Vivian Johnson (center) to slip between two skaters and start a jam. These were all legal moves.

George Skadding The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Roller Derby, Chicago, 1948.

George Skadding The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A fight broke out between ‘Toughie’ Brashun (No. 12), Gerry Murray and a hapless mediator from a men’s team (No. 13).

George Skadding The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Roller Derby, Chicago, 1948.

George Skadding The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Roller Derby 1948

George Skadding The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Roller Derby, Chicago, 1948.

George Skadding The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

An illegal hold by the skater at the left (No. 3) let her partner take the lead. It was observed that girls’ tactics were often dirtier than men’s.

George Skadding The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

LIFE magazine, Dec. 13, 1948.

LIFE Magazine

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Striptease Superstar: Rare and Classic Photos of Gypsy Rose Lee

Wed, 08 Jan 2014 12:59:30 +0000

Ask any American today under the age of, say, 40, “Who was Gypsy Rose Lee?” and chances are pretty good that the reaction will be utter bewilderment. “Gypsy Rose who?”

On the other hand, ask anyone who came of age in the 1940s or ’50s the same question, and the reaction will likely be something along the lines of, “Gypsy Rose Lee? I haven’t thought about her in decades! But let me tell you, back in the day. . . .”

Gypsy Rose Lee (born Rose Louise Hovick in Seattle in 1911) was and remains a force in American popular culture not because she acted in films (although she did act in films) or because she wrote successful mystery novels (although she did write successful mystery novels). The reason Lee’s influence endures can be attributed to two central elements of her remarkable, all-American life story: first, her 1957 memoir, Gypsy, which formed the basis for what more than a few critics laud as the greatest of all American musicals, the 1959 Styne-Sondheim-Laurents masterpiece, Gypsy; and second, her career in burlesque, when she became the most famous and perhaps the most singularly likable stripper in the world. (Modern “neo-burlesque” performers, like Dita Von Teese, Angie Pontani and others, cite Gypsy in near-reverent terms as a pioneer and inspiration.)

Here, LIFE.com celebrates Gypsy Rose Lee’s life and her career with a selection of pictures by George Skadding, a LIFE staffer far better known for photographing presidents (he was long an officer of the White House News Photographers Association) than burlesque stars. But, as the images in this gallery attest, Gypsy was hardly just another stripper; instead, as a performer, a wife and a mother of a young son, she had something about her an approachable, self-deprecating demeanor aligned with a quiet self-certainty that any politician would envy.

“I’m probably the highest paid outdoor entertainer since Cleopatra,” she’s quoted as saying in the June 6, 1949 issue of LIFE, in which many of these pictures first appeared. “And I don’t have to stand for some of the stuff she had to.”

“Confidently taking her place among history’s great ladies, Gypsy has for the first time in her life gone outdoors professionally,” LIFE wrote at the beginning of Gypsy’s six-month tour with what was called “the world’s largest carnival,” The Royal American Shows. The prospect of having to do her old strip-tease act 8 to 15 times a day “all across the country to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan,” meanwhile, although hardly thrilling to the 38-year-old mom, was also something Gypsy could, characteristically, put in perspective:

“For $10,000 a week,” she told LIFE, “I can afford to climb the slave block once in a while.”

She also, as LIFE put it, “had it soft, as carny performers’ lives go. She lives in her own trailer with her third husband, the noted Spanish painter, Julio de Diego. With them is her 4-year-old son, Erik [film director Otto Preminger’s child, as it turned out] and his nurse. Gypsy, who loves to fish, carries an elaborate angler’s kit, and whenever the show plays near a river, goes out and hooks fish as ably as she does customers.”

But it’s in the notes of writer Arthur Shay, who spent a week with the star in Memphis, Tennessee, in May 1949, that we meet the woman who emerges when the lights go down and the crowds depart and it’s clearly this Gypsy who truly connected to audiences wherever she went:

“Funny thing about show people or just plain fans,” she told Shay at one point, offering insights into the appeal of her nomadic life. “They think if you’re not in Hollywood or on Broadway making a couple of thousand a week taking guff from everybody and his cousin in the west, and sweating out poor crowds on Broadway you’re not doing well. [But] I’ve been touring the country playing nightclubs and making twice as much as I made in the movies, and having more fun! I get a lot more fishing done, for one thing, and I can live in my trailer and see the country.”

Gypsy Rose Lee died in April, 1970, of lung cancer. She was 59 years old.

Burlesque star Gypsy Rose Lee with fellow performers in Memphis, Tenn., 1949.

George Skadding/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Burlesque star Gypsy Rose Lee in front of a crowd in Memphis, Tenn., 1949.

George Skadding/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Gypsy Rose Lee, 1949.

George Skadding/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Burlesque star Gypsy Rose Lee in Memphis, Tenn., 1949.

George Skadding/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A sign announced the arrival of burlesque star Gypsy Rose Lee in Memphis, Tenn., 1949.

George Skadding/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Burlesque star Gypsy Rose Lee in Memphis, Tenn., 1949.

George Skadding/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Gypsy dictated a letter to her secretary, Brandy Bryant, who doubled up by doing a strip bit in the show.

George Skadding/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Burlesque star Gypsy Rose Lee (left) and her fellow performers in Memphis, Tenn., 1949.

George Skadding/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Burlesque star Gypsy Rose Lee (right) dressed other performers in Memphis, Tenn., 1949.

George Skadding/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Burlesque star Gypsy Rose Lee (center) dressed other performers in Memphis, Tenn., 1949.

George Skadding/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Burlesque star Gypsy Rose Lee writes in her dressing room in Memphis, Tenn., 1949.

George Skadding/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Burlesque star Gypsy Rose Lee (top) with another performer in Memphis, Tenn., 1949.

George Skadding/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Burlesque star Gypsy Rose Lee (right) coached another performer in Memphis, Tenn., 1949.

George Skadding/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Burlesque star Gypsy Rose Lee (center) and other performers in Memphis, Tenn., 1949.

George Skadding/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The audience at a Gypsy Rose Lee burlesque show in Memphis, Tenn., 1949.

George Skadding/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

In a reverse strip-tease act, Gypsy introduced near-nudes like Florence Bailey and dressed them on the stage.

George Skadding/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Gypsy Rose Lee’s burlesque show in Memphis, Tenn., 1949.

George Skadding/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Gypsy Rose Lee autographed programs for fans after a show in Memphis, Tenn., 1949.

George Skadding/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Gypsy Rose Lee and some of the dancers in her show posed for publicity pictures with the carnival performer K. O. Erickson.

George Skadding/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Gypsy Rose Lee with her third husband, the painter Julio de Diego, 1949.

George Skadding/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Gypsy Rose Lee held her 4-year-old son (by movie director Otto Preminger), Erik, outside of her trailer, 1949.

George Skadding/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Gypsy’s friends in the carnival included a sword swallower, a fire-eater and this cheerful bearded lady, Percilla Bejano, whose husband was the Alligator Man.

George Skadding/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Gypsy Rose Lee with fellow carnival performers in Memphis, Tenn., 1949.

George Skadding—Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Gypsy’s husband Julio painted the entrance while Gypsy and son watched. His attraction in the carnival was called Dream Show.

George Skadding/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Gypsy Rose Lee, 1949.

George Skadding/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Gypsy Rose rode the Little Dipper with her son, Erik, and her husband, Julio, in Memphis, Tenn., 1949.

George Skadding/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Gypsy Rose Lee gave her son, Erik, cotton candy while her husband Julio De Diego watched, 1949.

George Skadding/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Gypsy Rose Lee with her husband Julio and son Erik, 1949.

George Skadding/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Gypsy Rose Lee with her husband, Julio de Diego, 1949.

George Skadding/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Between shows Gypsy and family managed to sneak off for sundown fishing on the Wolf River, where Gypsy caught a catfish.

George Skadding/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Burlesque star Gypsy Rose Lee, offstage, 1949.

George Skadding/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

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