LIFE on Both Sides of the Camera: Eisenstaedt’s Surprising Self-Portraits

The great Alfred Eisenstaedt’s photographic vision wasn’t limited to the intimate portraits he produced of some of the 20th century’s most famous faces, from Marilyn Monroe and Frank Lloyd Wright to Mia Farrow and J. Robert Oppenheimer. After researching seemingly endless negatives, contact sheets, and Eisenstaedt prints, LIFE.com’s Liz Ronk rediscovered that the long-time LIFE photographer very often crowned his assignments with one last shot: creating captivating self-portraits, posing and frequently clowning with his subjects.

The realization that “Eisie” (as he was known by those lucky enough to call him a colleague or a friend) often turned the lens on himself in this way is likely to astonish photography aficionados and casual fans alike. Throughout his six-decade career, Eisenstaedt made some of the most immediately recognizable and most frequently reproduced images of the 20th century; that he also clearly enjoyed “playing tourist” and posing with the rich, the famous and the powerful as well as men and women whose names and occupations have been lost to history somehow brings the masterful photojournalist that much closer.

This legendary man, these self-portraits suggest, is actually more like many of us than we might have thought.

Eisenstaedt also famously carried with him an autograph book that, by the end of his life, was filled with page after page of signatures from long-forgotten artists, fellow photographers, legendary athletes, powerful world leaders in short, from anyone and everyone he happened to shoot.

The man’s habit of photographing himself with his subjects, and even asking for their autographs for his ever-growing collection, was not only well-known among by his colleagues at LIFE and elsewhere, but in at least one instance the seemingly whimsical tradition appears to have had a lasting influence on one of his younger peers. The celebrated sports photographer Neil Leifer recently told LIFE.com that early in his career, the notion of asking someone to pose for a picture after a shoot, or requesting an autograph of someone he had just finished shooting, struck him as vaguely unprofessional. It just was not something that a credible photojournalist did. Or so he thought.

“In the early 1980s I had an office next to Eisie’s in the Time-Life Building,” Leifer recalls, “and I saw that in his office he had framed photos of himself with JFK, Sophia Loren all these pictures where he was posing with people he had photographed on assignments for LIFE, and I thought, If Alfred Eisenstaedt, of all people, takes self-portraits with his subjects, and asks them for autographs, how unprofessional can it really be?

Here, then, in tribute to the endearing penchant of one of the 20th century’s indispensable photographers a penchant to add a quiet, personal, visual coda to so much of his life’s work LIFE.com offers a selection of some of the most revealing and unexpected of Alfred Eisensteadt’s singularly charming self-portraits.

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

Marilyn Monroe and Alfred Eisenstaedt at Monroe's Beverly Hills home, 1953.

Marilyn Monroe and Alfred Eisenstaedt at Monroe’s Beverly Hills home, 1953.

Alfred Eisenstaedt Time & LIfe Pictures/Shutterstock

Alfred Eisenstaedt and Wataru Narahashi, Japanese cabinet minister, Tokyo, March 1946.

Alfred Eisenstaedt Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Alfred Eisenstaedt and LIFE's National Affairs Editor, Hugh Moffett, on assignment in Kenya, 1966.

Alfred Eisenstaedt and LIFE’s National Affairs Editor, Hugh Moffett, on assignment in Kenya, 1966.

Alfred Eisenstaedt Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Alfred Eisenstaedt and Walt Disney, California, 1946.

Alfred Eisenstaedt and Walt Disney, California, 1946.

Alfred Eisenstaedt Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Alfred Eisenstaedt with Jackie Kennedy and Caroline Kennedy in Hyannis Port, Massachusets.

Alfred Eisenstaedt with Jackie Kennedy and Caroline Kennedy in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, 1960.

Alfred Eisenstaedt Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Alfred Eisenstaedt and former sumo wrestling champion Tomojiro Sakata, Tokyo, 1946.

Alfred Eisenstaedt Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

President John F. Kennedy and Alfred Eisenstaedt in the Oval Office, 1962

President John F. Kennedy signs Alfred Eisenstaedt’s autograph book after a portrait session in the oval office, 1962.

Alfred Eisenstaedt Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Alfred Eisenstaedt poses with “beauty culturist” and the first woman to star in her own daily exercise TV show, Debbie Drake, 1962.

Alfred Eisenstaedt Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Alfred Eisenstaedt with artist Afewerk Tekle in Ethiopia, 1955

Alfred Eisenstaedt with student-artist Afewerk Tekle, 22, in Ethiopia, 1955. Tekle went on to become one of Ethiopia’s most celebrated painters.

Alfred Eisenstaedt Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Alfred Eisenstaedt and Emperor of Ethiopia Haile Selassie, Addis Ababa, 1955.

Alfred Eisenstaedt and Haile Selassie

Alfred Eisenstaedt Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Sophia Loren and Alfred Eisenstaedt in the bedroom of her Italian villa, 1969.

Sophia Loren and Alfred Eisenstaedt in the bedroom of her Italian villa, 1969.

Alfred Eisenstaedt Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Alfred Eisenstaedt and Alice Austen in Staten Island, NY

Alfred Eisenstaedt pushes photographer Alice Austen in a wheelchair, Staten Island, New York, in 1951, one year before Austen died.

Alfred Eisenstaedt Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Alfred Eisenstaedt on assignment in India, 1963

Alfred Eisenstaedt poses with two unidentified local men while on assignment for LIFE in India in 1963.

Alfred Eisenstaedt Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

In a photograph taken by LIFE colleague Bill Shrout, Alfred Eisenstaedt kisses an unidentified woman reporter in Times Square on VJ Day, August 14, 1945 a powerful visual echo (in retrospect) of the now-iconic, era-defining “sailor kissing a nurse” picture that Eisenstaedt himself shot that very same day.

William C. Shrout Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Civil Rights: Preparation and Protest, 1960

Very few non-violent civil disobedience tactics of the late 1950s and early 1960s were as brilliantly simple in conception and as effective in execution as the sit-ins that rocked cities and towns from Texas and Oklahoma to Virginia, Georgia, North Carolina and beyond. Some sit-ins at lunch counters, state houses and other public and private venues were more confrontational than others; some lasted longer than others; some were more high-profile than others. But all required a certain kind of courage and a communal willingness to sacrifice that were hallmarks of the Civil Rights Movement in America.

Here, LIFE.com presents a gallery of photos—many of which never ran in LIFE magazine—from a planning conference sponsored by Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian leadership Council at Atlanta University and the series of protests and sit-ins that followed in May 1960. The pictures, by LIFE’s Howard Sochurek capture one small but significant exemplar of the sit-in phenomenon, as well as some of the unusual training methods that potential sitters-in endured before taking to the streets and to the seats.

In notes sent to LIFE’s editors in New York from the magazine’s Washington, DC, bureau in May 1960, the sit-in movement’s activities in Virginia were dubbed the “Second Siege of Petersburg” a tongue-in-cheek reference to the famous siege of the town and nearby Richmond between June 1864 and April 1865 during the Civil War.

The “siege” metaphor, meanwhile, takes on a peculiar resonance in those notes for example, in a quote from a newspaper publisher in Petersburg, George Lewis, who told LIFE: “I’m against integration. The mood of Petersburg definitely is for segregation. The Negroes are pushing too hard and the whole pace is too fast. Petersburg is not ready for integrated lunch counters. If they integrate them, the whites will boycott. But things are changing slowly. Ten years ago we couldn’t have printed a Negro picture in the paper. The whites wouldn’t have stood for it. Now we print them when they’re in the news.”

Describing a key element of that “explosive situation” the sit-ins by activists at various lunch counters in town LIFE wrote in its September 19, 1960, issue (published a full four months after the events described):

The key to the sit-in is non-violence, but it takes a tough inner fiber neither to flinch nor retaliate when, occasionally, hooligans pick on the sitters-in to discourage them or provoke them into some violent act. Fearing the stress on sensibilities and temper to which a sit-in could be subjected, the high school and college students of Petersburg, Va. studied at a unique but punishing extracurricular school before they attempted sitting-in.

In the course, which they ironically call “social drama,” student are subjected to a full repertory of humiliation and minor abuse. These include smoke-blowing, hair-pulling, chair-jostling, coffee-spilling, hitting with wadded newspaper, along with epithets…Anyone who gets mad flunks. So far in Petersburg effective police action and the calm attitude of the townspeople have averted trouble.

Except for a few adult leaders … the sitters-in are youngsters like Virginius Bray Thornton … In a real sense they are the South’s “new” Negro. They are educated, filled with a fierce idealism, chafing impatience and bitterness against the remaining shackles. “This is not a student struggle, it is a Negro struggle,” says Virginius.

As LIFE’s editors noted elsewhere in the piece, “Slowly, too often seemingly against its own perverse will, the nation was winning toward the constitutional ideal of civil equality.” We have these, and many other trailblazers, to thank for that progress.

LIFE and Civil Rights: Anatomy of a Protest, Virginia, 1960

A protestor practiced keeping his cool as smoke was blown in his face. His stand-in tormentors were David Gunter, an N.A.A.C.P.-student adviser (left), and Leroy Hill, a high school teacher.

Howard Sochurek/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

LIFE and Civil Rights: Anatomy of a Protest, Virginia, 1960

Kresge’s in Petersburg used a chain and a ‘Reserved’ sign setting off the white lunch counter to keep the African-Americans from sitting down.

Howard Sochurek/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

LIFE and Civil Rights: Anatomy of a Protest, Virginia, 1960

Lunch counter, Petersburg, Va., 1960.

Howard Sochurek/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

LIFE and Civil Rights: Anatomy of a Protest, Virginia, 1960

Training for sit-in harassment, Petersburg, Va., 1960.

Howard Sochurek/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

LIFE and Civil Rights: Anatomy of a Protest, Virginia, 1960

Preparing for non-violent civil disobedience.

Howard Sochurek/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

LIFE and Civil Rights: Anatomy of a Protest, Virginia, 1960

Training for sit-in harassment, Petersburg, Va., 1960.

Howard Sochurek/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

LIFE and Civil Rights: Anatomy of a Protest, Virginia, 1960

Preparing for non-violent civil disobedience.

Howard Sochurek/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

LIFE and Civil Rights: Anatomy of a Protest, Virginia, 1960

The picket polka provided moments of relief.

Howard Sochurek/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

LIFE and Civil Rights: Anatomy of a Protest, Virginia, 1960

Preparing for non-violent civil disobedience, Petersburg, Va., 1960.

Howard Sochurek/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

LIFE and Civil Rights: Anatomy of a Protest, Virginia, 1960

Petersburg, Va., 1960

Howard Sochurek/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

LIFE and Civil Rights: Anatomy of a Protest, Virginia, 1960

Rev. Martin Luther King, Virginia, 1960.

Howard Sochurek/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

LIFE and Civil Rights: Anatomy of a Protest, Virginia, 1960

A crowd attended a speech by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Virginia, 1960.

Howard Sochurek/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

LIFE and Civil Rights: Anatomy of a Protest, Virginia, 1960

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. (seated) during a gathering prior to non-violent civil disobedience, Virginia, 1960.

Howard Sochurek/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

LIFE and Civil Rights: Anatomy of a Protest, Virginia, 1960

Civil rights protest, Petersburg, Va., 1960.

Howard Sochurek/ Life Pictures/Shutterstock

LIFE and Civil Rights: Anatomy of a Protest, Virginia, 1960

Civil rights protest, Petersburg, Va., 1960.

Howard Sochurek/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

LIFE and Civil Rights: Anatomy of a Protest, Virginia, 1960

Student leaders waved demonstrators on.

Howard Sochurek/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

LIFE and Civil Rights: Anatomy of a Protest, Virginia, 1960

Civil rights protest, Petersburg, Va., 1960.

Howard Sochurek/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

LIFE and Civil Rights: Anatomy of a Protest, Virginia, 1960

Civil rights protest, Petersburg, Va., 1960.

Howard Sochurek/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

LIFE and Civil Rights: Anatomy of a Protest, Virginia, 1960

Student leader Virginius Thornton spoke to a women’s group, the Colored Women’s Federation of Petersburg, at one of the member’s homes, Petersburg, Va., 1960.

Howard Sochurek/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

LIFE and Civil Rights: Anatomy of a Protest, Virginia, 1960

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other activists during a civil rights strategy and planning conference at Atlanta University in mid-May, 1960.

Howard Sochurek/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

LIFE and Civil Rights: Anatomy of a Protest, Virginia, 1960

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and future Washington, DC, mayor Marion Barry during a civil rights strategy and planning conference at Atlanta University in mid-May, 1960.

Howard Sochurek/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

LIFE and Civil Rights: Anatomy of a Protest, Virginia, 1960

Atlanta University Conference, May 1960

Civil rights leaders called to the strategy and planning session by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., including Bernard Lee (Alabama); Dave Forbes (North Carolina); Henry Thomas (Washington); Lonnie King (Georgia); James Lawson (Tennesee); Virginius Thornton (Virginia); Wyatt Lee Walker; Michael Penn (Tennessee); Clarence Mitchell (Maryland); and Marion Berry (Tennessee). (Photo by Howard Sochurek / The LIFE Picture Collection)

LIFE and Civil Rights: Anatomy of a Protest, Virginia, 1960

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., 1960.

Howard Sochurek/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

LIFE and Civil Rights: Anatomy of a Protest, Virginia, 1960

LIFE magazine, September 19, 1960.

LIFE and Civil Rights: Anatomy of a Protest, Virginia, 1960

LIFE magazine, September 19, 1960.

LIFE and Civil Rights: Anatomy of a Protest, Virginia, 1960

LIFE magazine, September 19, 1960.

LIFE and Civil Rights: Anatomy of a Protest, Virginia, 1960

LIFE magazine, September 19, 1960.

Love Letter to New York: Classic LIFE Photos of the Big Apple

The monuments and the museums, the pulsing crowds on Fifth Avenue, opera at the Met and stickball in Spanish Harlem, sardines on the subway and the romantic urban vistas of Central Park: Over the years, LIFE’s photographers explored every corner of New York, the city the magazine always called its home.

From the countless images of the Big Apple stored away in the late, great magazine’s archives, LIFE.com presents a selection of black-and-white photos that show off the the spirit, the architecture, the culture (the high and the decidedly, thrillingly low) of Gotham visual testaments to a city that, in darkness and in light, remains one of a kind.


The silhouette of the Statue of Liberty in January 1943.

The silhouette of the Statue of Liberty in January 1943.

Andreas Feininger Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Pre-Christmas holiday traffic teaming with double-decker buses, trucks and cars, crawling along two-way-laned, 5th avenue near 34th street in November 1948.

Fifth Avenue teems with pre-Christmas holiday traffic near 34th street in November 1948.

Andreas Feininger Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Stormy sky hovers over the Brooklyn Bridge and the ghostly skyscrapers of Manhattan's financial district in March 1946.

The Brooklyn Bridge, 1946.

Andreas Feininger Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Model Carol Lorell walks down the street in the east '60s of Manhattan in January 1940.

Model Carol Lorell walks down 3rd avenue in the east ’60s of Manhattan in January 1940.

Alfred Eisenstaedt Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A view from New Jersey of the moon shining over Manhattan's RCA and Chrysler buildings as its light shimmers on the waters of the Hudson River in September 1946.

A view from New Jersey of the moon shining over Manhattan’s RCA and Chrysler buildings as its light shimmers on the waters of the Hudson River in September 1946.

Andreas Feininger Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A strolling blind musician plays guitar and harmonica along Broadway at night in the Times Square Area in 1944. "Mr. Skeffington" is playing at the Selwyn Theater across the street.

A strolling blind musician played guitar and harmonica along Broadway at night in Times Square in 1944.

Peter Stackpole/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Aerial view of the crowded beach and pier at Coney Island, including the Parachute Jump amusement park ride (the tall structure at left) in Brooklyn, New York, 1951.

Aerial view of the crowded beach and pier at Coney Island, including the Parachute Jump amusement park ride (the tall structure at left), Brooklyn, 1951.

Margaret Bourke-White Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Young boys with sticks run around while playing a street game in Spanish Harlem in January 1947.

Young boys in Spanish Harlem in January 1947.

Ralph Morse Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A woman walks her poodles along the sidewalk on Fifth Avenue in October 1942.

A woman walks her poodles along the sidewalk on Fifth Avenue in October 1942.

Alfred Eisenstaedt Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A view from the balcony at the opening of new Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center in January 1966.

A view from the balcony at the opening of new Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center in January 1966.

John Dominis Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Off-loaded freight front box cars are hoisted up to jutting loading platforms at Brooklyn Army Terminal in October 1949.

Off-loaded freight boxes are hoisted up to loading platforms at the Brooklyn Army Terminal in October 1949.

Andreas Feininger Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Men leave the floor of the New York Stock Exchange during an air raid drill in November 1951.

People race from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange during an air raid drill in November 1951.

Yale Joel Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A soldier saying farewell at Penn Station in December 1943.

A soldier says farewell at (the old, classic) Penn Station in December 1943.

Alfred Eisenstaedt Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Central Park, 1951.

Alfred Eisenstaedt Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

New Yorkers crowd Broadway below a large billboard depicting actress Marlene Dietrich in October 1944.

New Yorkers crowd Broadway below a large billboard depicting actress Marlene Dietrich in October 1944.

Andreas Feininger Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A plane flys above New York, NY before landing in October 1949.

Sightseeing above New York, October 1949.

Bernard Hoffman Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Crowed commuters on a train during rush hour on Manhattan's IRT subway in January 1970.

Commuters crowd a train during rush hour on Manhattan’s IRT subway in January 1970.

Ralph Crane Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Beautiful, ornate clock at Pennsylvania Station, December 1942

Beautiful, ornate clock at Pennsylvania Station, December 1942

Alfred Eisenstaedt Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The new Metropolitan Life Insurance Company North Building, left, and the 1909 Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower at night, Madison Square, New York City, May 1947.

The new Metropolitan Life Insurance Company North Building, left, and the 1909 Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower at night, Madison Square, New York City, May 1947.

Herbert Gehr Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A trio of sailors walk arm in arm down a dimly lit street near Times Square, searching vainly for fun in the curfew-quiet city, February 1945.

A trio of sailors walk arm in arm down a dimly lit street near Times Square, searching vainly for fun in the curfew-quiet city, February 1945.

Herbert Gehr Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

An aerial view of the entrance ramp leading to the top of the Port Authority Bus Terminal against the skyline of New York City in 1950.

An aerial view of the entrance ramp leading to the top of the Port Authority Bus Terminal, New York City, 1950.

Margaret Bourke-White Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Children participate in a bicycle safety program run by the New York City police in June 1954.

Children participate in a bicycle safety program run by the New York City police in June 1954.

Yale Joel Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Nikita S. Khrushchev and his wife, center, meet the press at the top of the Empire State building in September 1959.

Russian head Nikita S. Khrushchev and his wife, center, meet the press at the top of the Empire State building in September 1959.

Al Fenn Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Boys climb on rocks in Central Park, November 1972.

Boys climb on rocks in Central Park, November 1972.

Bill Ray Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A view of a big snowstorm in New York City in February 1960.

A snowstorm hits New York City in February 1960.

Al Fenn Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Columbus Circle during a heat wave in August 1944. A large Coca Cola sign and thermometer registers 100 degrees on top of building next to the Mayflower Hotel, New York.

Columbus Circle During a Heatwave, 1944

Marie Hansen Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Fire boats greet the SS France as it enters New York Harbor on its maiden voyage in February 1962.

Fire boats greet the SS France as it enters New York Harbor on its maiden voyage in February 1962.

Ralph Morse Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A father and son walk past the Globe Theater in 1971.

A father and son walk past the Globe Theater in 1971.

Bill Ray Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A view of bustling, raucous New York City, looking straight down 42nd Street, January 1946.

A view of bustling, raucous New York City, looking straight down 42nd Street, January 1946.

Andreas Feininger Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

It All Falls Apart: Stalingrad, and a Photographer’s Film, in Ruins

In a digital age, so much of what we see, hear and act upon is comprised wholly of incorporeal ones and zeroes. But the film on which LIFE photographers completed their assignments was a physical thing and thus, like all other tangible objects, subject to damage, corrosion, decay and dissolution.

Consider the images in this gallery photographs made by LIFE’s Thomas D. McAvoy in Stalingrad in 1947. Strong, accurate representations of a city struggling to rebuild and to regain some sense of normality after suffering unspeakable destruction during the Second World War, the images are, in fact, far removed from the film that McAvoy must have pulled from his camera after shooting the roll (or rather, the photos from many rolls) depicted here.

But it is the damage to the images the spots created, perhaps, by mold eating away at the film’s emulsion that not only gives many of these pictures an eerie, discordant beauty, but provides yet another way to consider the nexus of the real and what we might call the seemingly real.

We came across these images while we were looking for pictures of the cataclysmic and pivotal Battle of Stalingrad. As we looked through mold-pocked image after mold-pocked image, we gradually hit on the notion of a gallery devoted to pictures that might otherwise never again see the light of day precisely because they’re so glaringly imperfect.

But the scenes that McAvoy captured, after all, did happen. Stalingrad was reduced to rubble. Years after war’s end, the only things one could find in abundance there were hunger, cold and a rough pride in their Pyrrhic victory over the Reich. And then, by some accident or mischance or plain old human ineptitude, McAvoy’s physical, photographic record of Stalingrad in 1947 suffered damage itself. The images were, in turn, transformed into near-abstract, ghostly works, within which one can still see remnants of the robust photojournalism that McAvoy consciously, intentionally created.

Postwar Stalingrad, 1947.

Thomas D. McAvoy Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Postwar Stalingrad, 1947.

Thomas D. McAvoy Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Postwar Stalingrad, 1947.

Thomas D. McAvoy Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Postwar Stalingrad, 1947.

Thomas D. McAvoy Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Postwar Stalingrad, 1947.

Thomas D. McAvoy Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Postwar Stalingrad, 1947.

Thomas D. McAvoy Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Postwar Stalingrad, 1947.

Thomas D. McAvoy Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Postwar Stalingrad, 1947.

Thomas D. McAvoy Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Postwar Stalingrad, 1947. The white dots are a result of the film’s unintentional degradation.

Thomas D. McAvoy Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Postwar Stalingrad, 1947.

Thomas D. McAvoy Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Postwar Stalingrad, 1947.

Thomas D. McAvoy Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Postwar Stalingrad, 1947.

Thomas D. McAvoy Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Postwar Stalingrad, 1947.

Thomas D. McAvoy Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Postwar Stalingrad, 1947.

Thomas D. McAvoy Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Postwar Stalingrad, 1947.

Thomas D. McAvoy Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Postwar Stalingrad, 1947.

Thomas D. McAvoy Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Postwar Stalingrad, 1947.

Thomas D. McAvoy Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Postwar Stalingrad, 1947.

Thomas D. McAvoy Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The World’s Worst Weather: Photos From Mt. Washington

For much of the 20th century, the summit of New Hampshire’s 6,200-foot Mt. Washington was the site of the highest wind speed ever measured at the Earth’s surface—a 231 mph gust recorded in April 1934. (That record was surpassed in 1996 by a confirmed 253 mph gust on Barrow Island, Australia, during Tropical Cyclone Olivia.) That a peak just over a mile high in the relatively cozy confines of New England should be home to some of the planet’s most erratic and violent weather strikes many people as astonishing.

For meteorologists, meanwhile—and hikers and campers who have suffered its extreme mood swings— Mt. Washington’s weather is a source of wonderment.

The unofficial motto of the Mt. Washington Observatory weather station? “Home of the World’s Worst Weather,” and whether or not the claim is quantifiable, it’s nevertheless unlikely that any other place on earth with comparably forbidding conditions is as readily accessible, or sees as many people each year, as the fabled peak.

In March 1953, LIFE magazine published a feature, with pictures by the intrepid Peter Stackpole, chronicling the work of a military and civilian team atop the “windiest spot in the U.S.” a team that, in winter, turned “the 6,288-foot mountain into a gigantic laboratory for defense department experiments into jet age techniques of warfare and survival. Standing at the focal point of a natural wind tunnel, Mt. Washington is continuously ripped by shrieking winds, [while] the 1934 blow of 231 mph makes the average 75-mile gale seem mild.”

The brutal weather, meanwhile, “can cause a jet engine to ice up in 20 seconds” and “builds up rime ice so quickly the process can almost be seen by the naked eye.”

Here, LIFE.com heads to the White Mountains, and the deceptively small peak with the huge reputation as a place where very, very bad weather is born.

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

Brutal weather atop New Hampshire's Mount Washington, 1953.

Brutal weather atop New Hampshire’s Mount Washington, 1953.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A guide on foot leads the way down New Hampshire's Mount Washington, 1953.

A guide on foot led the way down New Hampshire’s Mount Washington, 1953.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A technician clambers around Summertime Hotel which, in dead of winter, stands castle-like and forbidding, its doors and windows sealed with foot of ice.

A technician clambered around Summertime Hotel which, in dead of winter, stood castle-like and forbidding, its doors and windows sealed with foot of ice.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Eerie formations in rime ice, Mount Washington, 1953.

Eerie formations in rime ice, Mount Washington, 1953.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

New Hampshire's Mount Washington, 1953.

New Hampshire’s Mount Washington, 1953.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Hooded weather-study team member, New Hampshire's Mount Washington, 1953.

A hooded weather-study team member, New Hampshire’s Mount Washington, 1953.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

New Hampshire's Mount Washington, 1953.

New Hampshire’s Mount Washington, 1953.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

New Hampshire's Mount Washington, 1953.

New Hampshire’s Mount Washington, 1953.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Hooded weather-study team member, New Hampshire's Mount Washington, 1953.

A hooded weather-study team member, New Hampshire’s Mount Washington, 1953.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

New Hampshire's Mount Washington, 1953.

New Hampshire’s Mount Washington, 1953.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Near edge of precipice for snowcat whose driver in tipping vehicle can see only 25 feet ahead through wind-whipped snow.

This snowcat driver, his vehicle tipping, could see only 25 feet ahead through wind-whipped snow.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

New Hampshire's Mount Washington, 1953.

Snug civilians doing technical work and enjoying a poker break were warm and comfortable behind the double plate-glass window. Civilians were subject to same rules as military personnel: no liquor allowed.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Jet test, carried on in an open-front steel hangar, is run day and night to measure and photograph ice which forms at the intake on the inside of mounted engine. Depression in snowbank is created by the engine's fiery blast. . . . When engine is turned off, water quickly refreezes rock-hard.

This jet test, carried on in an open-front steel hangar, was run day and night to measure and photograph the ice which formed at the intake on the inside of a mounted engine. The depression in the snowbank was created by the engine’s fiery blast. When the engine was turned off, water quickly refroze.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Military test, New Hampshire's Mount Washington, 1953.

Military test, New Hampshire’s Mount Washington, 1953.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Military test, New Hampshire's Mount Washington, 1953.

Military test, New Hampshire’s Mount Washington, 1953.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Military test, New Hampshire's Mount Washington, 1953.

An air rescue team successfully outsmarted the weather in an improvised para-tepee made of an old parachute.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Military survival test, New Hampshire's Mount Washington, 1953.

Military survival test, New Hampshire’s Mount Washington, 1953.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Military test, New Hampshire's Mount Washington, 1953.

Military test, New Hampshire’s Mount Washington, 1953.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Wet test by three Army men at bottom of mountain proves efficiency of Quartermaster Corps' new 'cold bar' suite, which though not waterproof utilizes two layers of rubber and insulating barrier between to conserve body heat.

This wet test by Army men at the bottom of the mountain proved the efficiency of the Quartermaster Corps’ new gear, which though not waterproof utilized two layers of rubber and an insulating barrier between to conserve body heat.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Military test, New Hampshire's Mount Washington, 1953.

Military test, New Hampshire’s Mount Washington, 1953.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

New Hampshire's Mount Washington, 1953.

New Hampshire’s Mount Washington, 1953.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Hooded weather-study team member, New Hampshire's Mount Washington, 1953.

A hooded weather-study team member, New Hampshire’s Mount Washington, 1953.

Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Down, Not Out, in London: LIFE in the Underground, 1940

London’s monumental Metropolitan Railway opened on January 9, 1863, and the very next day the general public was permitted to ride the trains for the first time. The dauntless and, for Victorian England, remarkably democratic nature of the undertaking ensured that a great city’s restless, striving population would be able to move about the metropolis in an utterly new, bracing fashion—and nothing about London, or about urban transportation anywhere, has ever been quite the same since.

The Underground runs on 250 miles of track, almost half of which is, in fact, underground, and carries more than 3 million passengers every single day. For decades, it has played a central role not only in the daily lives of Londoners, but—like Big Ben, Tower Bridge and other landmarks and architectural marvels—has shaped non-Britons’ ideas of what London is. What it looks and feels like. The Tube has starred in books, movies and song. It is a cultural as well as an engineering touchstone, and was the model for virtually all the great subways that came after it.

In 1940, however, during the eight months of German bombing raids known ever after as the Blitz, the Tube witnessed what was (to borrow a phrase from Winston Churchill) its finest hour. As Luftwaffe bomber planes pummeled London and other British cities, often sparking urban fire storms that raged for days and, by the time the raids stopped, killed tens of thousands of civilian men, women and children, countless Londoners and people from the outskirts of the city sheltered every night far below, on the platforms of Underground stations.

The Hans Wild photograph here—which ran in the Dec. 30, 1940 issue of LIFE above the caption, “In cold and discomfort far below the hell above, London tries to sleep in its deep subways”—this Wild photo is a testament to what Churchill, in his inimitable way, called “the courage, the unconquerable grit and stamina” of the English. But there is nothing terribly romantic, high-minded or even noble about shivering a night away while an enemy tries to kill you, or lays waste to your city, or both.

There might be romance and nobility in that sort of scenario in retrospect, but even the most unconquerable and grittiest of Londoners would likely admit, by the fall and winter of 1940, that the core emotion most of them endured day and night was an anxiety that often veered into deep, chilling fear. But again, we’re all aware that true courage is not the absence of fear, but doing what needs to be done in the face of one’s fear. And by that definition, Churchill’s refrain — courage, grit, stamina — does, in fact, seem to neatly characterize the actions and the attitude of the English throughout the Blitz, and throughout the entire war. England was, after all, virtually on its own by December 1940, holding off a “Thousand-Year Reich” that had swept through western Europe with appalling ease. Britons were the last of the unconquered — until America entered the war almost a full year later, after Pearl Harbor, and the Axis tide truly began to roll back.

Finally, it’s worth noting that one of the single deadliest and most destructive Luftwaffe strikes against London happened on the night of December 29, 1940—one day before the date of the issue of LIFE in which Wild’s photo appeared. That night, German planes dropped thousands and thousands of incendiary and high explosive bombs on the English capital, destroying the center of London and setting off a firestorm so intense and terrifying it came to be known as the Second Great Fire of London.

As the fires raged, men, women and children huddled in multitudes down below the surface of the city, in the tunnels carved out a century before by a civilization that could not have imagined a bomber plane, much less the destructive power that one such plane could unleash in a single night. In a sense—a very real sense—the Tube saved London during the Blitz. For that alone, we should celebrate the Underground, as well as the vision that brought it to loud, tumultuous—and yet somehow very organized, very orderly, very English—life.

Londoners sleep in the city's Underground for protection during German bombing raids, 1941.

Londoners slept in the city’s Underground for protection during German bombing raids, 1940.

Hans Wild/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

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