walter sanders Photo Archives - LIFE

The Dawn of Rock: America Finds Its Thrill

Bill Syken — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 14:34:12 +0000

In its April 18, 1955 issue LIFE magazine reported on—with a fair amount of concern—the onset of the defining evolution of popular music in the 20th century. The story was titled “Rock ‘N Roll: A Frenzied Teenage Music Craze Kicks Up a Big Fuss.“

Here’s how LIFE described what the “big fuss” was all about:

The nation’s teenagers are dancing their way into an enlarging controversy over rock ‘n roll. In New Haven, Connecticut the police chief has put a damper on rock ‘n roll parties and other towns are following suit. Radio networks are worried over questionable lyrics in rock ‘n roll. And some American parents, without quite knowing what it is their kids are up to, are worried that it’s something they shouldn’t be.

But like it or not, rock and roll was here to stay. Standing in the heart of the moment, LIFE saw dancing as a big part of the new music’s appeal. The magazine, grasping to connect this revolutionary moment to the recent past, described rock and roll dancing as “a combination of “the Lindy and the Charleston, and almost anything else.” The story, shot by staff photographers Walter Sanders and Loomis Dean, had more pictures of kids dancing than of musicians performing. One of the shoots took place at the dance studio of Arthur Murray, where kids demonstrated their new moves.

LIFE acknowledged the roots of this new music, saying “The heavy-beat and honking-melody tunes of today’s rock ‘n roll have a clearly defined ancestry in U.S. jazz going back to Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith of 30 years ago.” The broader market was now turning to a style of music that first became popular in the Black community because record companies had been focussing on “mambos and ballads,” and as a result “the country’s teenagers found themselves without snappy dance tunes to their taste.”

Some adults fretted over lyrics that seemed to be laden with innuendo and double meanings. But even as the LIFE article adopted the tone of a worried parent, the pictures in the magazine told another story. The photos showed exuberance and joy. And by today’s standards, everything looks extremely proper. The main concert photos feature the great Fats Domino, who is wearing a suit and playing a grand piano. The young fans are dressed as if they were going to a formal occasion, without any jeans or T-shirts in sight.

It’s mind-boggling to think that a mere 14 years from when this story ran, rock fans would be mucking around in the mud at Woodstock. But there was no stopping it at this point. The revolution was on, and it was coming fast.

Teenagers demonstrated their rock music dance moves for Arthur Murray and his wife, in background, at Murray’s dance studio.

Walter Sanders/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Arthur Murray and wife (in the background to the left) enjoyed a demonstration by teen-agers of rock`n roll dancing, 1955..

Walter Sanders/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Young dancers from a 1955 story on rock music.

Walter Sanders/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A couple dancing from a story on rock music, 1955.

Walter Sanders/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A young couple danced to rock music, 1955.

Loomis Dean/Life PIcture Collection/Shutterstock

Pioneering rock DJ Allen Freed did a show from a studio in Boston, 1955.

Walter Sanders/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A sign for an early rock show presented by pioneering DJ Allan Freed, 1955.

Walter Sanders/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Teenagers danced to rock music being spun by DJ Al Jarvis in the parking lot of a Los Angeles supermarket, 1955.

Loomis Dean/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Audience members enjoying Alan Freed’s Easter show at Brooklyn Paramount Theater, 1955.

Walter Sanders/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Saxophonist Herbert Hardesty (center), a member of Fats Domino’s band, let loose at 54 Ballroom in Los Angeles, 1955.

Loomis Dean/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Fats Domino’s band performed in Los Angeles, 1955.

Loomis Dean/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Fats Domino’s band rocked out in Los Angeles, 1955.

Loomis Dean/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Fats Domino in concert in Los Angeles, 1955.

Loomis Dean/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Fats Domino and his band performed in Los Angeles, 1955.

Loomis Dean/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Young dancers from a 1955 story on rock music.

Walter Sanders/LIfe Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A show from the early days of rock and roll, 1955.

Loomis Dean/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The post The Dawn of Rock: America Finds Its Thrill appeared first on LIFE.

When Barnard Added Relaxation to its College Curriculum

Bill Syken — Thu, 31 Aug 2023 15:36:37 +0000

College is said to be more stressful than ever, but even way back in 1954, Barnard College, the all-female sister school of Columbia University, picked up on the anxiousness in its student body and tried to do something about it. The school mandated relaxation classes for its new students.

Here’s how LIFE described what was going on in its Feb. 8, 1954 issue:

Having found that too many students are too tense, Barnard has inaugurated a session in relaxation in its Physical Education Department which every student must attend….Every student gets a chart with relaxing exercises to practice alone and is taught to recognize such symptoms of tension as lip-biting, nail-biting, insomnia, headache and eye-batting (if not premeditated). Barnard considers relaxation so important that other gym courses such as posture correction and rhythmics often end up in a 10-minute relaxing session.

What were the exercises taught to these first-year students? While the word “yoga” does not appear anywhere in the coverage, the photographs by LIFE’s Walter Sanders of Barnard’s relaxation instruction includes poses that will look familiar to anyone who has ever done cat and cow or savasana.

The line in LIFE’s coverage about “posture class” set up a sidebar story on another Barnard ritual. According to the story, Barnard held a posture contest every January for first-year students. In the contest, students walked around the school gym in a circle for a half hour and were pulled out when they started to slump or show other postural flaws.

It’s perhaps not a mystery why the students were a little tense.

The seven stages of the “dropping daisy’ exercise that was part of the relaxation instruction at Barnard College, 1954.

Walter Sanders/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The mandatory relaxation class at Barnard College, 1954.

Walter Sanders/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The relaxation class at Barnard College, 1954.

Walter Sanders/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Relaxation class at Barnard College, 1954.

Walter Sanders/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Relaxation instruction at Barnard College, 1954.

Walter Sanders/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Relaxation class at Barnard College, 1954.

Walter Sanders/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A scene from a posture class at Barnard College, where students doing leg lowering exercises to strengthen their abdomens, 1954.

Walter Sanders/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Scene from a posture class at Barnard College, 1954.

Walter Sanders/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The posture class at Barnard College included students hanging on bars to correct uneven shoulders, 1954.

Walter Sanders/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Gym instructor Patty Smyth (pointing) of Sarah Lawrence College helped judge the January posture competition at Barnard College, 1954.

Walter Sanders/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

During a posture competition at Barnard College, contestants walking in a circle for half an hour, and were eliminated when their posture faltered, 1954.

Walter Sanders/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The post When Barnard Added Relaxation to its College Curriculum appeared first on LIFE.

How Auto Shows Revved Up Excitement at the Apex of the Auto Age

Wed, 13 Jan 2016 08:00:07 +0000

The cars of the 1950s were different. They were designed for looks as much as for aerodynamics. They were so about so much more than their utility, a way to get from point A to point B, They were vehicles of adventure and style, the things that popular musicians wrote songs about. And the arrival of the new model year created the kind of excitement that today we reserve today for announcements of the latest phones. ‘

LIFE’s Walter Sanders went to a New York car show previewing the new models for 1957—historically recognized a great year for cars—and captured the glitz and glamour of that particular moment in history, which tells plenty about the place that the car held in the imagination of America in that age.

The National Automobile Show, held at the now-demolished New York Coliseum, featured an older kind of pageantry. Automakers drew attention with models posing as hood ornaments and “a thirty-minute musical revue” called “”America on the Move,” repeated six times daily. A new vehicle model was rarely seen unaccompanied by a live human model, clad in a regal dress as she pointed out its features.

LIFE’s story in its Dec. 17, 1956 issue (which featured a baptism on its cover) was headlined “Car Makers Sound a Mighty Toot for 1957.”

“The color motif of turquoise, gold and red-orange mirrored the jaunty mood of the automobile industry,” LIFE magazine declared in its report, which said that the show presented 66 trucks and buses and 124 passenger cars. The show was a big enough of a cultural moment that Richard Nixon, then vice president of the United States, showed up and gave a speech.

Were those old cars better? It’s a matter of debate, especially when you consider that throughout the fifties those gas guzzlers averaged about nine miles per gallon and lacked all the high-tech safety features that have been the focus of the auto industry’s recent creations.

Still, it’s hard to look at these pictures and not get charmed by the excitement of that moment.

Liz Ronk, who edited this gallery, is the Photo Editor for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter @lizabethronk.

1956 New York Auto Show

Walter Sanders The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The post How Auto Shows Revved Up Excitement at the Apex of the Auto Age appeared first on LIFE.