In the summer of 1948, LIFE photographer Allan Grant set out on a trip from Omaha, Neb., toward Salt Lake City, Utah, traveling west through Nebraska and Wyoming along one of the most storied stretches in America: Route 30, part of the early transcontinental Lincoln Highway.
For reasons lost to time, none of Grant’s marvelous photos from that epic post-war road trip were published in LIFE. Now LIFE offers a series of Grant’s pictures from Nebraska and Wyoming made more than seven decades ago, in tribute to the human desire to get up and go.
Route 30 in Nebraska, 1948.
Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Route 30 in Wyoming, 1948
Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Route 30, 1948
Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Motel along Route 30, 1948.
Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Route 30 in Nebraska, 1948
Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Family sleeping outside by a billboard alongside Route 30 in Wyoming, 1948.
Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Route 30, 1948
Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Scene along Route 30, 1948.
Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Route 30, 1948
Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Route 30, 1948
Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Scene after driver fell asleep at the wheel on Route 30, Nebraska, 1948.
Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Motel along Route 30, 1948.
Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Route 30, 1948
Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Route 30, 1948
Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Route 30, 1948
Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Route 30, 1948
Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Route 30, 1948
Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Cars pulling out of a trailer camp onto Route 30, Nebraska, 1948.
Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The 1733 Dance Hall—reportedly 1,733 miles from both Boston and San Francisco—in Kearney, Neb., 1948.
Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A driver filling a water bag at a gas station alongside Route 30, 1948.
Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Route 30, Nebraska, 1948
Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A couple and their five-month-old daughter heading home to Cheyenne, Wyo., after a visit to Omaha, Neb., 1948.
Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Motor lodge along Route 30, 1948.
Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Route 30, 1948
Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Route 30, 1948
Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Route 30, 1948
Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Route 30, 1948
Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Motor lodge along Route 30, 1948.
Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Charles Corwin White, who bicycled from Los Angeles to New York in 1948, was photographed west of Rawlins, Wyo.
Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
In late July 1944, LIFE photographer Ralph Morse was on hand for what he called, in his typed notes from the scene, the “first organized entertainment in Normandy” after D-Day. In his photos of scantily clad women (and men) performing for hundreds of battle-weary troops, Morse chronicled a small, memorable reprieve in the midst of the Allied push south, toward Paris.
(A scan of the note that Morse sent to his editors along with his film is included with this story’s photos.)
A handful of Morse’s photos were published in the Aug. 14, 1944, issue of LIFE but most of the pictures featured in this gallery never appeared. In that Aug. ’44 issue, LIFE described the scene Morse witnessed at a “rest camp” for the troops:
“While the great breakthrough boiled southward [from Normandy toward Paris] a few U.S. soldiers were taking it easy at rest camps behind the lines. At one of the camps the men were entertained by an eager troupe of French vaudevillians called Les Grandes Tournées d’André Fleury.”
Les Grandes Tournées, it seems, had been organized in Paris three years before, while the French capital was under German control. In late May of 1944 the troupe set out for Cherbourg; on June 5, the day before the invasion, they set up in the ancient town of Carteret. When the Germans pulled in the face of the Allied onslaught, the performers were stranded, with little food or money.
So when a U.S. Army Special Service officer asked them to put on a show for American troops, they were happy to comply. “They were charging the Germans and French 30 to 60 francs,” Morse wrote in his notes. “Now they get 25 francs a head from the Special Service funds for each soldier at the showings.”
The money, by all accounts, was well-spent.
“The show is old-type vaudeville and plenty of legs,” Morse went on. “A perfect show for the battle-tired troops resting a few days. The girls not understanding English and the troops not understanding French . . . the remarks and wisecracks are terrific. Its value as medicine for the boys is tops. They are completely relaxed . . . and yell and scream to their hearts’ content.”
Liz Ronk edited this gallery for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter @lizabethronk.
An acrobatic dancer performed for U.S. troops lounging in the field at rest camp. The show featured girl dancers and two clowns, one of whom had once performed with Ringling Circus in New York. The girls heavily relied on dancing and pantomime because none of them spoke English.
Ralph Morse The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Stage-door Johnnies talked with French dancers at their dressing tent. Most of dancers were Parisians. For soldiers in the camp, the show’s price of admission was paid by the Army Special Services Fund.
Ralph Morse The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The first organized show for American troops after D-Day, Normandy, July 1944.
Ralph Morse The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
First organized show for American troops after D-Day, Normandy, July 1944.
Ralph Morse The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The first organized show for American troops after D-Day, Normandy, July 1944.
Ralph Morse The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The first organized show for American troops after D-Day, Normandy, July 1944.
Ralph Morse The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The first organized show for American troops after D-Day, Normandy, July 1944.
Ralph Morse The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The first organized show for American troops after D-Day, Normandy, July 1944.
Ralph Morse The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The first organized show for American troops after D-Day, Normandy, July 1944.
Ralph Morse The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The first organized show for American troops after D-Day, Normandy, July 1944.
Ralph Morse The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A French performer in first organized show for American troops after D-Day, Normandy, July 1944.
Ralph Morse The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The first organized show for American troops after D-Day, Normandy, July 1944.
Ralph Morse The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
French performers in the first organized show for American troops after D-Day, Normandy, July 1944.
Ralph Morse The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The first organized show for American troops after D-Day, Normandy, July 1944.
Ralph Morse The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
French performers in the first organized show for American troops after D-Day, Normandy, July 1944.
Ralph Morse The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
French performers in the first organized show for American troops after D-Day, Normandy, July 1944.
Ralph Morse The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
French performers in the first organized show for American troops after D-Day, Normandy, July 1944.
Ralph Morse The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
French performers in the first organized show for American troops after D-Day, Normandy, July 1944.
Ralph Morse The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
French performers in first organized show for American troops after D-Day take a bow, Normandy, July 1944.
Ralph Morse The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The World Cup has come a long way in popularity since 1966—which happened to be a magnificent edition of the tourney, as England won it all, on English soil, defeating West Germany in the final. While LIFE sent the great Art Rickerby to photograph the event, his pictures never ran in LIFE magazine. Viewed today, they provide a unique look at the planet’s greatest sporting event during a fascinating period in its history. Prominent in the photos is the legendary Pelé, who died on November 22, 2022 at age 82. Even though his Brazil team did not make it out of the group stage that year, he was a natural player for Rickerby to focus on, given that his Brazil teams had won the World Cups in 1958 and 1962 (and would win again in 1970).
In 2014 LIFE.com chatted about the 1966 photos with Alexi Lalas, the former U.S. national team star and current TV commentator.
Of the third photo in the gallery, of Pelé in Liverpool, Lalas notes that the picture “really got me thinking about the aesthetics of the sport, and it’s a reminder of one attribute shared by most soccer players that helps explain why so many people adore the game. Namely—these guys are not huge. They’re not giants. They look, in a way, like you and me, and that guy sitting across the aisle on the train, or wherever. In Pelé’s case, you have probably the single most famous athlete on the planet at the time—but he’s not a seven-foot-tall basketball player, or a 300-pound defensive end. Still, seeing him here, there’s no question you’re looking at an athlete. The way he carries himself, his undeniable presence. Despite his unimposing stature, you can just sense his physical power.”
Not all of Rickerby’s photos from England in the summer of ’66, however, were of official World Cup matches. In fact, some of his best, most revealing work captured moments far from the sold-out stadiums in London, Sheffield, Manchester or Birmingham.
“Look at that shot,” Lalas said of English kids riveted by Brazil’s goalkeeper, Gilmar, leaping to block a shot during practice in Liverpool (the second photo ). “There’s no way those kids ever forgot watching those players, that close. Their body language shows how thrilled they are. And no wonder! There’s something about watching practice sessions that’s totally different—and better, in a way—than watching a big game. I remember training at Oakland University in Michigan before the World Cup in ’94. The fans who came out to watch us might remember that experience more fondly than watching the game we played in the Silverdome in Pontiac. There’s a reason baseball fans go to batting practice and spring training — the chance of a real, authentic interaction with the players, away from the hoopla around a game.”
Liz Ronk edited this gallery for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter @lizabethronk.
Bobby Moore raised the World Cup trophy, July 30, 1966, after England defeated Germany, 4-2, in the final before 98,000 fans at Wembley Stadium, London.
Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Brazil’s goalkeeper, Gilmar, leapt to block a shot during a World Cup practice in Liverpool, 1966.
Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Brazil great Pelé entered the stadium in Liverpool, 1966.
Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
British soccer fans, 1966.
Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Fans welcomed the Brazil squad to the stadium, Liverpool, 1966.
Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Pelé was tackled during Brazil’s 2-0 win over Bulgaria, England, 1966.
Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
English fans happily swarmed around the Brazilian squad’s bus, 1966.
Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
World Cup, 1966, England.
Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Wembley Stadium, World Cup, 1966.
Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
England celebrated a score, World Cup, 1966.
Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Commenting on this photo of England celebrating a goal, Alexi Lalas said, “If I could bottle the feeling that comes with scoring a goal in a big match, future generations of my family would never have to work another day in their lives.”
Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jack Charlton slid hard against West Germany, World Cup, 1966.
Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
England’s George Cohen vied with Argentina’s Silvio Marzolini during a World Cup quarterfinal match, 1966.
Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
World Cup final, England vs. West Germany, July 1966.
Five identical sisters who became known as the Dionne Quintuplets were born prematurely in a small village in Ontario, Canada, in May 1934. The quintet were a money-making juggernaut in the 1930s and 1940s, put on display as public curiosities, while their private lives were marked by misery, betrayal and alleged abuse at the hands of those closest to them. The text below is an edited version of an article that Dennis Gaffney wrote on the quintuplets for WGBH’s Antiques Roadshow site.
It’s worth noting, meanwhile, that while LIFE magazine—in its own way, and like so many other publications —contributed to the exploitation of the “Quins,” the magazine did have the sense to sound some prescient warnings about the nature of the quintuplets’ unusual and intensely proscribed upbringing. “Their formal schooling,” LIFE wrote in its Sept. 2, 1940, issue, “will never constitute a real education until the children can be exposed to the rough and tumble of life with less-supervised contemporaries. They have . . . developed no social immunities to the unprotected existence that they will someday have to face.” _________________________________________________________________________
On May 28, 1934, on a farm in the village of Corbeil, Ontario, near the Quebec border, a French-Canadian mother, Elzire Dionne, gave birth to five identical girls — Annette, Emilie, Yvonne, Cecile, and Marie. Born at least two months prematurely, each baby was small enough to be held in one hand; together they weighed only 14 pounds. Few expected they would survive . . . . But they did, and became the first quintuplets known to have survived infancy.
Soon the world was referring to the Dionne quintuplets as “miracle babies,” and they became a worldwide symbol of fortitude and joy during the Great Depression.
The girls themselves became a tourist attraction. By 1937, about 3,000 visitors were passing daily through the “Quintland” hospital compound where the sisters were being cared for. . . . Hollywood exploited their fame, and four movies were made about them in the 1930s all with happy endings.
But the real lives of the Dionne quintuplets were largely unhappy. On May 27, 1935, the provincial government of Ontario had taken the five sisters away from their parents, after their father, Oliva, signed a contract with promoters to exhibit the girls at the World’s Fair in Chicago. Although Oliva cancelled the contract a day after he signed it, the authorities stepped in anyway to protect the babies, they said, from germs, potential kidnappers, and exploitation.
Yet it was in the custody of the state that the girls became Canada’s largest tourist attraction. During the girls’ infancy, nurses would take them to a nursery balcony and show them one at a time to a crowd below, their names written on a card. In the media, the girls’ upbringing was characterized as privileged, with round-the-clock nursing and a swimming pool and playground all their own. But in reality their playground was surrounded with glass that allowed visitors to view them three times a day.
In their 1963 autobiography, We Were Five, they wrote of being isolated from others during their upbringing, only permitted to leave the compound a few times. “We dwelt at the center of a circus,” they wrote. “A carnival set in the middle of nowhere.” According to some estimates, Quintland brought in as much as $500 million to the Ontario province in less than a decade.
“Money was the monster,” they said in We Were Five, “So many around us were unable to resist the temptation.” Although their parents lived across the street from Quintland, the couple felt unwelcome there, and became infrequent visitors. “We didn’t know each other,” Cecile recalled.
At age 9, the Dionne couple won the girls back after a bitter custody battle, yet the girls’ new home was “the saddest home we ever knew,” they later wrote. They didn’t perceive their parents as saviors from Quintland; they came to see their mother as unloving and their father as controlling, even tyrannical.
At age 18, the Dionne sisters left home, breaking off nearly all contact with their family. Emilie became a nun and died of a seizure in 1954. Three married and had children, but divorced. Marie died of a blood clot in 1970. In the mid-1990s, the three remaining sisters Annette, Cecile, and Yvonne wrote in their book The Dionne Quintuplets: Family Secrets that their father had abused when he took them alone in the car.
Despite the enormous revenue generated by the quintuplets as a public curiosity, by 1941, when the girls were 7, only $1 million had been put in their trust fund; when they turned 21 and became eligible to receive the funds, only $800,000 remained. Their sheltered life did not prepare them for the real world, and when they were on their own Cecile said the girls had difficulty distinguishing a nickel from a quarter.
What funds they were provided eventually disappeared, and when Annette, Cecile and Yvonne reached their sixties, they lived together outside Montreal on a combined income of $746 a month. In 1998, they asked the Canadian government to compensate them for the trust fund money that had been lost or taken. The government’s first reply included an offer of $2,000 a month, but after a public outcry, a $4 million settlement was reached.
Dennis Gaffney is a writer based in Albany, New York, who has written for the New York Times, Reader’s Digest, Mother Jones and other publications, as well as for online outlets like the companion sites for PBS’s Antiques Roadshow and American Experience.
The text above is published here courtesy of Dennis Gaffney and WGBH/Antiques Roadshow.
The “Dionne Quintuplets” posed in their confirmation dresses on day of their first Holy Communion, 1940.
Hansel Mieth The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A writing lesson in a nursery schoolroom was the Quins’ first exercise in the discipline of formal education. Above (left to right): Cecile, Annette, Emilie, Marie and Yvonne studied a word on the blackboard, then ducked their heads to print it out.
Hansel Mieth The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
From left to right: Cecile learned easily but lost interest quickly; Yvonne was the leader with initiative; Marie had caught up with her sisters in growth but was still the slowest of the five; Annette had developed the most marked musical talent; Emilie, left-handed, was the prankster.
Hansel Mieth The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Tourists visited the home of the Dionne Quintuplets, Canada, 1940.
Hansel Mieth The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
This souvenir store specialized in Dionne Quintuplets merchandise, 1940.
Hansel Mieth The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
People filed into the Dafoe Hospital observation pavilion for a quick glimpse of Quins. One-way screens and large signs saying ‘Silence’ minimized the distraction for the Quins.
Hansel Mieth The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The Dionne Quintuplets stood around their guardian, Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe, 1940.
Hansel Mieth The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
(Clockwise from top left) Marie, Emilie, Yvonne, Cecile, Annette Dionne, 1940.
Hansel Mieth The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
This barefoot shot defused a rumor about web toes, and also further confirmed their identicalness, through their shared partial fusion of the second and third toes, found only in one in a 1,000 people.
Hansel Mieth The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Three of the Dionne Quintuplets played in the yard of their home/compound, 1940.
Hansel Mieth The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Marie liked to make paper cutouts; here she did so with the indulgent approval of Mme. Gaetane Vezina, governess of the Quins.
Hansel Mieth The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Modeling in plasticine and sketching with crayon gave Emilie an outlet for her strong sense of color and form. Here she drew the plan of a house and grounds in colored plasticine strips.
Hansel Mieth The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Marie’s eyes were examined by Dr. William Hill of Toronto.
Hansel Mieth The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The Quins, after rising at 7:30 in the morning, dressed together in the big bathroom.
Hansel Mieth The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The Dionne Quintuplets sang on CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corp.) radio, 1940.
Hansel Mieth The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Inspired by these extraordinary pictures, made by LIFE photographers from the 1930s to the 1970s, Chicago-based journalist Chuck Sudo pays tribute to the town he loves: the Windy City, that toddling town, sweet home Chicago.
Architect Daniel Burnham, whose fingerprints are all over so much of modern Chicago, famously advised, “make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized.”
That, in a proverbial nutshell, is Chicago at its finest: daring to dream and willing to put in the effort to make those dreams reality — whether that means establishing a trading post atop a marsh, rebuilding after a legendary, catastrophic fire or fashioning an iconic skyline that stretches halfway to the heavens. The photos here perfectly capture the realized dreams of the men and women of Chicago, and epitomize why the 20th century was, so emphatically, “The American Century.”
Passion — daring to dream — permeates the town and, in large part, defines Chicagoans, both native-born and adopted. This is the city that gave us Nelson Algren, Studs Terkel, Gwendolyn Brooks, Carl Sandburg, Roger Ebert, Mike Royko. Chicago is where Oprah Winfrey and Michael Jordan became global superstars. It is the birthplace of the Temperance movement — and it’s where booze flowed like water during Prohibition. Over the decades, its politicians and mobsters have often been indistinguishable from one another, while Chicago’s struggles with poverty, violence and political corruption — like those of any other great, international metropolis — are as old as the city itself.
In the end, though, Chicago’s well-documented woes are as much a part of the city’s fabric as its glories, its triumphs, its world-class cultural achievements.
Daniel Burnham also wrote, “aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will not die, but long after we are gone be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistence.” Those of us who call ourselves Chicagoans continue to dream big, to reach higher, hoping to add our names to the city’s bold, forever unfolding narrative — and inspire the dreams of future generations in the city we love.
Chuck Sudo was born and raised on Chicago’s Northwest side. Follow Chuck @bportseasoning.
The El Capitan stopping in Chicago, 1939.
Peter Stackpole The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A crowd of 10,000 at an “America First Committee” rally listened to speeches promulgating isolationism and urging the cutting off of aid to Britain, Chicago Arena, 1941
William C. Shrout The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Chicago, 1941.
Horace Bristol The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Chicago Sun newspaper, 1943.
Wallace Kirkland The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Chicago train yard, 1943.
Walter Sanders The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
News of the D-Day invasion, Chicago, 1944.
Gordon Coster The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Tenement, west side of Chicago, 1944.
Gordon Coster The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Chicago, 1944.
Gordon Coster The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Chicago, 1944.
Gordon Coster The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Chicago Blackhawks players Bill Mosienko (left) and Max Bentley (right), 1946.
Frank Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Commuters were stranded during a railroad strike, Chicago, 1946.
Mark Kauffman The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
People gathered on the street to watch a satire of political officials, Chicago, 1947.
Wallace Kirkland The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Children in a junk-littered lot, Chicago, 1947.
Walker Evans The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Chicago, 1947.
Walker Evans The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The Empire State Express at the Chicago Railroad Fair, 1948.
George Skadding The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Children watched a giant animated figure of Paul Bunyan, Chicago, 1949.
Francis Miller The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The Y.M.C.A. hotel, Chicago, 1951.
Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Chicago nightclub, 1952.
Gjon Mili The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Legendary Chicago club owner Matt Schulien entertained patrons, 1952.
Gjon Mili The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The Sea Restaurant, Chicago, 1952.
Wallace Kirkland The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Michigan Senator Blair Moody (right) and Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. conferred during the 1952 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Hank Walker The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
An aerial view overlooked the network of tracks for some 20 major railroads converging on Union Station (upper left), Chicago, 1954.
Andreas Feininger The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The Cleveland Indians played the Chicago White Sox, 1954.
Francis Miller The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Prudential Building, Chicago, 1954.
John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
The beloved Ernie Banks of the Chicago Cubs, 1955.
John Dominis The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Chicago detectives forced their way into an apartment, 1957.
Gordon Parks The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Poet Carl Sandburg looked out a window in the Chicago Board of Trade Building, 1957
Grey Villet The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Bill Klose, a Cub fan who threw out the first ball of season, 1957.
Frank Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Boston’s Ted Williams waited while a White Sox pitcher warmed up at Comiskey Park, 1957.
Frank Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Chicago, 1957.
Francis Miller The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Chicago, 1957.
Francis Miller The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Stunt man Jack Wylie flew over the Chicago River, 1958.
Al Fenn The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Midway Airport, 1960.
Robert W. Kelley The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Chicago garage, 1961.
Andreas Feininger The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Chicago, 1961.
Andreas Feininger The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Mies van der Rohe buildings, Chicago, 1961.
Andreas Feininger The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Bears linebacker Dick Butkus in a game against the Rams, 1965.
Bill Eppridge The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Chicago welcomed astronauts James McDivitt and Ed White, 1965.
Robert W. Kelley The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
National Guardsmen in front of a store during riots following the murder of Martin Luther King Jr., Chicago, April 1968.
Lee Balterman The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
O’Hare Airport, 1970.
Co Rentmeester The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A TWA plane landed at O’Hare, 1970.
Co Rentmeester The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Back in 1995, the singer-songwriter and cartoonist Peter Blegvad released a song later made semi-famous when a cover version by Loudon Wainwright III was featured on the soundtrack for Judd Apatow’s Knocked Up. The song, “Daughter,” is as sweet and true as any song ever written by a parent to a child, and manages to capture in relatively few words the intense, tender, exasperating and, through it all, loving relationships that dads and daughters enjoy — or, at times, simply endure.
(Wainwright, interestingly, enough, is the father of Rufus Wainwright and the son of a longtime LIFE magazine writer and editor, Loudon Wainwright, Jr.)
Here, in a special Father’s Day gallery, LIFE.com applauds that unique familial bond with photos of famous fathers and their daughters and, for a little variety, one famous daughter and her dad.
Blegvad’s lyrics to “Daughter,” meanwhile, are worth celebrating in their own right. See them below.
Everything she sees she says she wants. And everything she says she wants I see she gets.
That’s my daughter in the water, everything she owns I bought her, Everything she owns. That’s my daughter in the water, Everything she knows I taught her. Everything she knows.
Everything I say She takes to heart. And everything she takes, She takes apart.
That’s my daughter in the water, Every time she fell I caught her, Every time she fell. That’s my daughter in the water I lost every time I fought her. Yeah, I lost every time.
Every time she blinks she strikes somebody blind, And everything she thinks Blows her tiny mind.
