NYC - EARLY 1900's

As signified by Manhattan’s horse-drawn taxis and the superfluous beachwear at Coney Island, these photographs of New York were taken at the turn of the last century. Oh, wow. That reminds us why they’re called bathing suits. Naturally, it’s intriguing to see the evolving stages of NYC’s mythological, cinematic landscape, its seaports, bridges, and train tracks. Yet, we find ourselves utterly distracted by the residents — the strolling shoppers of the Union Square flower market, the olde fashionistas of Greenwich Village, the sheep herder at Prospect Park… wait, what? Yes, a sheep herder. Plucked from the Library of Congress by the Business Insider, take a gander into the New York of yore in our gallery.

MOE DALITZ

MOE DALITZ
(1899-1989)

The Double Life of Moe Dalitz

Shady dealings did little to dull the luster that this private man brought to the city of glitz

BY JOHN L. SMITH
Review-Journal

Morris B. "Moe" Dalitz in 1982, at age 83. (Review-Journal files) Moe Dalitz and his Cleveland buddies rescued the underfinanced and incomplete Desert Inn, which celebrated one of its early anniversaries with the "cutting" of a giant birthday cake. (UNLV Special Collections) The King wore khaki when Moe Dalitz and other DI brass greeted the singer as a celebrity guest in late ¹50s. From left are Dalitz, Elvis Presley, dancer Juliet Prowse, Wilbur and Toni Clark, Cecil Simmons, and, standing at rear, Joe Franks. (UNLV Special Collections)

     If you want to understand Las Vegas history, you must get to know Moe Dalitz. 
      Consider that no mean feat, as Dalitz died in 1989 and in life was a private man. Dalitz gave few in-depth interviews in his lifetime, but much was written about him. 
      Las Vegas history is filled with characters who lived double lives. The life of Moe Dalitz is perhaps the best example of a gambling man existing in sunshine and in shadow. 
      His story might have been penned by Horatio Alger had he written scripts for "The Untouchables." 
      Early in his life, Dalitz was a bootlegger and racketeer mentioned in the same breath as Meyer Lansky and Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel. In Cleveland, one longtime member of law enforcement would tell the Kefauver Commission, "Ruthless beatings, unsolved murders and shakedowns, threats and bribery came to this community as a result of gangsters' rise to power." Dalitz was considered part of that rise. 
      Given the nation's fascination with organized crime, fueled in no small part by Hollywood and blood-soaked banner headlines during Prohibition's many whiskey wars, early in his life Dalitz reached something akin to a celebrity status as a runner of rum and operator of roadhouse gambling parlors from Cleveland to Newport, Ky. If Dalitz never achieved Lansky's moniker of "financial genius of organized crime," it was not because he was less successful. 
      Unlike Lansky, whose inability to shake off early-won infamy forced him into the shadows throughout his life, Dalitz made the improbable transition from underworld figure to legitimate citizen. If local police detectives and FBI men suspected Dalitz of wrongdoing during his latter years, they dared not whisper such criticism without ample evidence. By the time Dalitz reached his prime, his financial empire and formidable string of businesses were legitimate. 
      It didn't start out that way. 
      Morris Barney Dalitz was born Dec. 24, 1899, in Boston. The son of a laundry operator, Barney, Moe grew up at his father's side. The family moved to Michigan when Moe was still a child, and his father opened Varsity Laundry in Ann Arbor, which served University of Michigan students. Although he would become known first as an illegal liquor and gambling racketeer, Moe was a successful laundry operator throughout most of his life. It was a labor action associated with his laundry business that introduced Moe Dalitz to Jimmy Hoffa, future president of the Teamsters union, the labor organization that one day would be responsible for lending Nevada gamblers the millions it would take to build the first wave of casino resorts in Las Vegas. Dalitz was attempting to keep his laundries from organizing and, according to author James Neff, at one point hired Mafia thugs to make his point. 
      Once he became associated with mob muscle, a door opened and Dalitz gravitated toward the lucrative and dangerous Prohibition-era liquor trade. All the while he took profits and invested them in legitimate businesses in Detroit and later in Cleveland, where law enforcement noted that he had become associated with the Mayfield Road Gang. 
      In fact, by the 1930s his list of legitimate businesses was impressive. Dalitz held an interest in the Michigan Industrial Laundry Co. in Detroit and the Pioneer Linen Supply Co. in Cleveland and percentages in the Reliance Steel Co. and the Detroit Steel Co. And there was Milco Sales, Dalitz Realty, Berdene Realty and the Liberty Ice Cream Co. He even owned a piece of the Chicago & Rock Island Railroad. 
      Unlike common rumrunners, who wound up either dead or incarcerated, Dalitz was not a simple man. His operation ran Canadian whiskey in trucks floated on barges across the Great Lakes. 
      During Cleveland's liquor wars, where local mob factions battled for market share, Dalitz came away unscathed. By the repeal of the Volstead Act, he had opened a series of illegal casinos with names like the Mound Club, Pettibone Club, the Jungle Inn, the Beverly Hills Club and the Lookout House. 
      "How was I to know those gambling joints were illegal?" Dalitz once quipped to a friend. "There were so many judges and politicians in them, I figured they had to be all right." 
      In the 1940s Dalitz served his country more than cards, dice and clean shirts. He also served in the Army, rising to the rank of second lieutenant. But when the war ended he found himself reluctantly returning to an increasingly complex business life at home. Stated bluntly, the heat was on across America as law enforcement and high-ranking politicians vilified illegal gamblers and their ilk as a societal scourge. 
      So Moe Dalitz did what any gifted businessman in his racket might have done. He migrated to Las Vegas, where casino games were legal and gamblers were men to be respected. At the time, Las Vegas and Havana vied for dominance as legal gambling centers. Dalitz dabbled in Cuban casinos, where his friend and bootlegging ally Meyer Lansky had invested many millions, but was more impressed with what was happening in the Silver State. 
      Dalitz led a group of Cleveland investors, including Sam Tucker, Thomas McGinty, and Morris Kleinman, first in the purchase of the then-incomplete Desert Inn, which opened in 1950. Dalitz not only was an experienced casino man, but he also understood that gamblers wanted more than green felt. He also gave them greens, developing the Desert Inn Country Club and creating the Tournament of Champions golf tournament, which focused a positive national spotlight on Las Vegas. 
      A year after the Desert Inn opened, Sen. Estes Kefauver focused another kind of spotlight on gambling. The Kefauver hearings concerned themselves with the phenomenon of gambling and organized crime in America, as well as with promoting the political careers of senators who portrayed themselves as mob-busting Puritans. Dalitz appeared before the Kefauver committee and more than held his own. 
      KEFAUVER: "As a matter of fact, you had been making a great deal of money in recent years, so I suppose from your profits from one investment you would then go ahead and make another investment. Now, to get your investments started off you did get yourself a pretty good little nest-egg out of rum running, didn't you?" 
      DALITZ: "Well, I didn't inherit any money, Senator ... If you people wouldn't have drunk it, I wouldn't have bootlegged it." 
      The critics came and went, but Dalitz kept on building his financial empire and paying his taxes. (In a lifetime of nefarious activity allegations, Dalitz was indicted twice. Once in 1930 in Buffalo, N.Y., for bootlegging. Once in 1965 in Los Angeles for tax evasion. Both charges were dismissed.) 
      In 1958, Dalitz and his associates used millions in Teamsters loans and dollars borrowed from Louis Jacobs' Emprise Corp. to take over the Stardust from a group led by Jake "The Barber" Factor. The new crew of efficient casino men turned the Stardust into a winner by expanding the number of rooms and the gaming area and adding a Parisian-style floorshow. 
      Dalitz shied away from interviews, which sooner or later usually led to hard questions about his notorious days in the rackets. But he was not without a sense of humor and his own sense of imagemaking. 
      "When I left home it was during Prohibition in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and I went into the liquor business while it was illegal," Dalitz once told a local reporter. "Then when the Repeal came along, we went into the casino business in Kentucky and Ohio where it was illegal. I learned everything I know there." 
      If readers didn't know better, they might think Dalitz led an almost colorless life. 
      To a friendly interviewer from "The Saturday Evening Post," he gave his spin on the phenomenon of gambling: "Let's say gambling isn't moral. Neither is drinking to excess. I think Las Vegas has given people lots of fun. Sure, some will get hurt. But listen, they can go to Atlantic City and get into more danger in a crap game than here, where there's supervision." 
      By 1962, there was plenty of supervision to go around. Dalitz had long since become a major player on the Strip and in Las Vegas business development in general. He was a 13.2 percent owner of the Desert Inn. His longtime partners, Morris Kleinman and Ruby Kolod, each held a similar percentage. Wilbur Clark, the Desert Inn's co-founder who was not originally a member of Dalitz's Cleveland group, held 17.1 percent but had no real decision-making power. 
      By then, Las Vegas business leaders were impressed with Dalitz and marveled at his success. But in their diatribe on the evils of Las Vegas gambling, "The Green Felt Jungle," authors Ed Reid and Ovid Demaris were less impressed. 
      "In a recent interview, Ed Reid was stunned when Dalitz burst into tears," Demaris and Reid wrote. 
      " 'Why, why,' he implored, his arms rising in supplication, the tears streaming from his hard little eyes, 'why are they persecuting me?' " 
      " 'Who?' Reid inquired." 
      " 'Them. All of them! I've fought hoodlums all my life. What are they trying to do to me?' " 
      The conclusion of Reid and Demaris echoed the opinion of law enforcement: "He was a sanctimonious little mobster from Cleveland ..." they wrote in a chapter lambasting Dalitz for his old ties and notorious friendships. "He is still a hoodlum in conscience and mind, but his heart has weakened." 
      But Dalitz was far more complicated than that. At a time many of the state's gamblers remained inactive politically, Dalitz was a driving force behind Pat McCarran, one of Nevada's most powerful U.S. senators. It was Dalitz who pushed McCarran to publicly fight a devastating federal tax on sports betting, eventually reducing a wagering surcharge to a paltry quarter of 1 percent from more than 10 percent. 
      Through his longtime friendship with Hoffa, Dalitz had a quiet but formidable influence on loans to Las Vegas businesses from the Teamsters Central States Pension Fund. Law enforcement investigators long speculated that one word from Dalitz could secure millions in low-interest financing. 
      Dalitz used his clout with the Teamsters to build more than casinos. He and his partners used a $1 million Teamsters loan in 1959 to build Sunrise Hospital. Other dollars flowed into golf course and shopping mall development during years in which most lending institutions laughed at entrepreneurs from notorious Las Vegas. 
      Did he also maintain his old roots to the rackets? 
      More than one FBI informant and government witness would allege he did. 
      "The Cleveland Mob maintained strong ties to Las Vegas and worked at making new ones," Neff wrote in his investigative work on the Teamsters, "Mobbed Up." "The Mafia's ruling commission had declared Las Vegas an open city, so each crime family was entitled to stake out different casinos as their exclusive territory. The Cleveland family got in early with the Desert Inn. Its principal owner, Moe Dalitz, served as an informal referee in territorial disputes among the different Mafia crews, as Jackie (Presser) informed the FBI in 1978." 
      By the late 1970s, Dalitz was considered a senior member of Las Vegas casino society, but also the subject of several damaging pieces of investigative journalism, not the least of which was a Penthouse magazine article titled "La Costa: Syndicate in the Sun." Using government sources, the story detailed the development of La Costa, the posh spa community near San Diego and left the impression that Dalitz and his fellow investors were men of less than savory repute. A defamation suit filed by Dalitz, Allard Roen and Irwin Molasky was eventually settled with a letter of clarification. 
      By then, Dalitz' suitability was being questioned by image-conscious Nevada gaming authorities. 
      "Moe was always such a gentleman," Las Vegas advertising executive and longtime Dalitz friend Marydean Martin said. "He gave back to the community. When the Maude Frazier Building (at UNLV) was built, it had no furniture. He bought all the furniture and didn't want anybody to know about it. He was that kind of person. 
      "Moe almost never complained, but he was feeling down. He said, 'I'll bet your grandpa drank whiskey,' and I said that he did. 'I'm the guy who made the whiskey, and I'm considered the bad guy. When does the time ever come that you're forgiven?' " 
      "I said, 'I don't know.' It was one of the very few times he ever said anything about it." 
      Las Vegas cab company owner and former Stardust Hotel general manager Herb Tobman knew Dalitz well. 
      "He never turned me down for anything charitable," Tobman recalled. "I was in awe of meeting him. As far as I'm concerned he was a great man ... Moe's charity is legendary around this town. There has never been a greater influence on this city." 
      Dalitz was named Humanitarian of the Year by the American Cancer Research Center and Hospital in 1976. In 1982 he received the Torch of Liberty Award by the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith. In 1979 he set up the Moe Dalitz Charitable Remainder Unitrust, a million-dollar fund to be divided upon his death. When Dalitz died a decade later, 14 nonprofit organizations split $1.3 million. 
      His contributions to the growth of Las Vegas are priceless.

BUGSY

BENJAMIN SIEGEL
(1905-1947)

'Bugsy'

The mobster with the movie star looks and the certifiable paranoia brought Las Vegas much more attention after his death than he did during his short life.

BY JOHN L. SMITH
Review-Journal

This undated photo of Benjamin Siegel was probably taken after his acquital at a murder trial. (Los Angeles Public Library) The Flamingo under construction, about 1946. (Courtesy Flamingo Hilton) After Bugsy Siegel's death, the Flamingo came into the hands of a new crop of wiseguys. Poolside at the Flamingo, left to right, are Israel "Icepick Willie" Alderman, Joe Rosenberg and Gus Greenbaum. Greenbaum presumably ran afoul of mob mavens ; he was murdered along with his wife in Phoenix. (Las Vegas News Bureau/LVCVA)

     For an incurable paranoid who had only a few moments left to live, Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel was probably feeling pretty content. 
      It was June 20, 1947. Siegel had escaped the stifling Las Vegas heat for the cool shadows of the Moorish-style house at 810 Linden Drive in Beverly Hills. He'd just returned there from Ocean Park after a late dinner at Jack's-at-the-Beach. Settling onto the chintz sofa in the living room, a copy of the Los Angeles Times before him and his trusted pal, Al Smiley, a few feet away, the dapper Siegel was the picture of confidence. 
      He was probably as self-satisfied as a sociopath with a blood-soaked portfolio could be. After his Flamingo's disastrous grand opening on Dec. 26, 1946 -- the strains of Jimmy Durante's one-liners and Xavier Cugat's band fading amid the word that the casino had lost a fortune -- the shiny new Las Vegas resort was reopened March 27 and was finally turning a profit. That fact was almost certain to quiet the whispered rumors from New York and Miami Beach that his days as a Las Vegas casino mogul were numbered. Even his hell-raising girlfriend, the fiery Virginia Hill, was in Europe and out of shouting distance. 
      At age 41, Ben Siegel had carved out a notorious name for himself in the annals of organized crime and in Las Vegas history as well. Somehow, he had managed to walk between the raindrops and avoid conviction on a plethora of crimes ranging from bootlegging to murder. If he had not become a silver screen gangster, which his closest friends believed he secretly wanted to be, he had accomplished the next best thing: He had become a genuine gangster with movie star looks and had surrounded himself with the Hollywood glitterati. 
      In a few seconds, his name would become permanently etched in the American psyche. When people thought of Las Vegas, they would always think of Benny Siegel. Not because he had turned the Fabulous Flamingo into the snazziest carpet joint in Sin City, but because, at that moment, an assassin wielding a Army-issue carbine aimed at the back of Siegel's carefully coifed head and blew his brains and one of his pretty blue eyes all over the living room. Smiley was untouched. The shooter was never identified. 
      Siegel's .30-caliber send-off not only made headlines from L.A. to London, it linked the handsome psychopath forever with the fortunes of Las Vegas. 
      In a town with more than its share of wiseguy misfortune, what makes Siegel's demise so special? For that matter, what makes the infamous Bugsy worthy of a place in the pantheon of local historical figures? 
      Several things, really. 
      In an odd way, Siegel was better for business in death than in life. Had Siegel lived a long time, he might have ended up respectable or in the penitentiary. Had he died of a heart attack or the gout, he might have become a footnote in time. 
      Instead, he died violently and, in a sense, got to live forever. 
      Through the years, Siegel has been credited for everything from putting the glow in neon to inventing Las Vegas. The fact the Flamingo wasn't even his idea tells you something about how myths are made. 
      The Flamingo was the creation of Billy Wilkerson, a Hollywood nightclub owner and one of the founders of "The Hollywood Reporter." Wilkerson had plenty of big ideas and no shortage of friends in the underworld. The Flamingo was to be his crowning glory. By the mid-1940s, it was an unfinished dream deferred. 
      Enter Siegel. 
      Bugsy was not only a wealthy man in his own right and a big-time earner for his mob friends, but he had access to all the money the New York, Chicago and Miami Beach underworld could generate. Numerous published accounts of Siegel's status rank him as one of the most respected and feared names in the syndicate. He carried the sort of clout that was capable of persuading tightwads like Charlie "Lucky" Luciano and Meyer Lansky to invest in his desert dream. And they did. 
      Siegel and the boys bankrolled construction of the Flamingo with $1.5 million, but in the months following the end of World War II, materials were scarce. The job immediately ran over budget. 
      It didn't help that the four-floor Flamingo was built like a fortress, a testament to Siegel's paranoia. The thick concrete walls were reinforced with steel acquired from Naval ship yards. Siegel's top-floor suite was riddled with trap doors and escape hatches, one leading to a getaway car in his private garage. There were gun portals and hallways leading nowhere. The Flamingo was a physical manifestation of Bugsy Siegel's troubled brain.
      But it also was filled with the sort of posh amenities never before seen in Las Vegas. Siegel not only poured big money into carpets and fixtures, he spared no expense on a pool, tennis courts and riding stables. Siegel's idea, his first Las Vegas attorney, the late Lou Wiener Jr. once said, was to create a real resort capable of not only attracting the Hollywood set, but also to give gamblers a variety of diversions from their inevitable losses at the tables. Siegel envisioned adding a championship golf course to the Flamingo, but his plans were interrupted. 
      Theft at the Flamingo construction site was legendary, a big part of the reason the hotel ultimately cost $6 million, an incredible figure for the times. "A lot of characters, I think, duped him," Wiener said. "They'd go through the front gates with materials and drive out the back." But at least one author suggests Siegel's own sticky fingers were responsible. Says Richard Hammer in his well-researched "Playboy's Illustrated History of Organized Crime:" 
      "Siegel was not only a flop as an impresario, but, Lansky said, he was a thief as well. Lansky had learned that Miss Hill was making frequent trips to Europe, depositing several hundred thousand dollars in cash in a numbered account in Switzerland; the cash had come from the Flamingo's building fund. 
      "Nobody, not even an old trusted comrade like Siegel, steals from his underworld friends and gets away with it. Siegel's execution was ordered, but first he would be given time to prove that his Nevada dream might actually come true." 
      It is possible, too, that Siegel's Hollywood profile became so high that he became an embarrassment to his associates. He was a silver-screen sycophant and groomed the acquaintance of major players such as Jack Warner, Cary Grant, Barbara Hutton, Jean Harlow and every hoodlum's favorite actor, George Raft. American gangsters learned how to walk by watching George Raft on the screen. They learned how to talk by listening to his snappy, wiseguy patter. 
      "He was a frustrated actor and secretly wanted a movie career, but he never quite had nerve enough to ask for a part in one of my pictures," Raft once said of his pal. 
      Las Vegas history buffs know Siegel as the man who developed the Flamingo, but few appreciate just how big a hoodlum he really was. Born in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn in 1905, as a boy Siegel befriended Meyer Lansky. Together with a gang of teen-age toughs known as the Bug and Meyer Mob, they provided protection and efficiently performed a string of contract killings on behalf of the city's bootlegging fraternity. By the time World War II broke out, Siegel and Lansky had made the post-Prohibition transition from illegal whiskey running to illegal bookmaking, numbers running and gambling. Siegel lived at the Waldorf Astoria and traveled in a bullet-proof limousine with the requisite pair of torpedoes posing as bodyguards. 
      After coming West to oversee the Capone mob's successful takeover of the race wire business, Siegel's infatuation with Hollywood began to show -- and his profile began to rise dangerously high. At the same time he was muscling in on illegal gambling throughout Southern California, buying percentages of small Las Vegas casinos, clipping Tony Cornero's S.S. Rex gambling ship, and strong-arming his way into the Agua Caliente racetrack in Tijuana as well as a California dog track, Siegel was busy being seen in the company of Harlow and Raft and many other stars. Continental race wire sales to Las Vegas sports books alone generated $25,000 a month, according to "The Green Felt Jungle," and Siegel bought into the Golden Nugget and Frontier at a time his pal Lansky was picking up a piece of the El Cortez. 
      Siegel was one of the schemers behind opening a pipeline of narcotics trafficking from Mexico to the United States, and he raked a percentage of the profits from the largest prostitution ring in the West. If it moved in the netherworld of illegality, Benny Siegel got his pinch. 
      Siegel's temper was legendary. No one dared call him "Bugsy" to his face, and anyone with a smart aleck comment about his height or thinning hair was likely to get his teeth knocked down his throat. To some local observers, Siegel's maniacal chest-puffing set the pattern for several generations of big-shot casino moguls. 
      Las Vegan Herb McDonald, then a young assistant general manager at El Rancho Vegas, met Siegel through Billy Wilkerson. For a short time, McDonald knew Siegel only as a casino man. 
      "We played gin rummy, and I won 28 bucks," McDonald said in an article in Nevada magazine. "When I saw Ben Siegel again, he asked me when I was going to give him a chance to win some of his money back. I said, 'Any time you think you're good enough.' " 
      A short while later, McDonald learned Siegel's true background as a member of the board of Murder Inc. 
      "My knees buckled," McDonald said. "Had I known that, I would have lost it." 
      But Wiener knew Bugsy as an intense character who was not without a charitable streak. Siegel was a soft touch for the Damon Runyon Cancer Fund. 
      "When he got killed, you wouldn't believe how many employees broke down in tears," Wiener recalled. "He was very generous with the help and very well liked. He was good to people. He was good to me and my wife." 
      But others knew Siegel as a textbook paranoid. 
      "He used to go down to Los Angeles about every two weeks," said the Flamingo's first engineer, Don Garvin. "He'd have me change the lock on the door of his room almost every week. He and Virginia would sit out in the hall while I worked. He was a little leery. It got to where I would pretend to change it and hand him the same key." 
      But, in 1947, no amount of caution could prevent the boys from disciplining one of their own. 
      Wallace Turner put it bluntly in his break-through 1965 book, "Gamblers' Money:" 
      "Siegel was murdered reportedly to effect a change in management. There are those who firmly believe that this killing of the hoodlum Siegel irrevocably set the pattern for Las Vegas' development as a gambling center. The Mob was in, these observers hold, and the Mob has stayed ... 
      "In a sense he was the Christopher Columbus for the Mob; he went exploring and found the New World in the desert. But Siegel failed to adapt. It is possible that he became confused between the two ways of doing business and thought that because his name was on so many pieces of paper he really owned the Flamingo Hotel. He was wrong." 
      Today, the Flamingo Hilton is one of the larger casino resorts in the world. It has long since shed its association with Siegel's kind, but management saw fit to honor the Flamingo's founder with a bronze plaque and a small rose garden not far from the original site of the Flamingo's first pool. 
      What is Siegel's legacy? 
      "I think what it shows more than anything else is the public's fascination with gangster-type characters," Flamingo publicity director Terry Lindberg said. "(His death) turned a man who was basically not a historical figure into somebody who was a lot larger than life." 
      Others give Siegel more credit. 
      UNLV Public Administration Department Chairman William Thompson: "It's folklore, it's mythology ... His death let the world know we had casinos ... 
      "It was important that we turned the corner and quit being just a cowboy town and became a resort town. He was responsible for that." 
      It is a sentiment echoed by UNLV history professor Hal Rothman, author of "Devil's Bargain: Tourism in the Twentieth-Century American West." 
      "The most important thing about Siegel is he raised the ante here," said Rothman. "He had an idea, however bizarre, of what class was. As we become a resort destination, we actually owe him more and more." 
      Las Vegas historian Frank Wright: "His death was a great advertisement for the city of Las Vegas in a sense. It certainly brought attention to Las Vegas and created a sort of sense of illicit excitement about Las Vegas." 
      Ever a defender of the image of his old friend, Wiener credited Siegel with setting a standard others are still trying to match. 
      "He was one of the most progressive businessmen I've ever met," Wiener once said. "Had he been alive today, he probably would have had the first 3,000-room hotel in Las Vegas." 
      But Ben Siegel was not meant for such a tame fate. By spilling his blood, he lives forever in Las Vegas history.

THE BIG Apple - 1940'S flavorpill

As we previously mentioned, before he became famous for directing films like A Clockwork Orange, Lolita, and Dr. Strangelove, Stanley Kubrick was a poor kid from the Bronx who worked as a photojournalist for Look magazine. (He was their youngest staff photographer on record.) Kubrick’s striking black and white images of 1940s New York City — which were often shot on the sly, his camera concealed in a paper bag with a hole in it — hint at the dark beauty and psychological drama of his later creative output. Now, VandM is making 25 select prints from the nearly 10,000 photos that he took as a young man available for purchase for the first time. Click through to preview some of his early work, and head here to buy a limited-edition print, with the majority of the proceeds going to the Museum of the City of New York

WW II IN COLOR THE SOVIET STEAMROLLER

WWII IN COLOR TURNING THE TIDE

WWII IN COLOR LIGHTNING WAR

WWII IN COLOR THE GATHERING STORM

FOUNDING FATHERS

This Saturday is July 4, a day when Americans of all shapes and sizes will come together to commemorate the founding of their country, and the noble pursuit of life, liberty, and overcooked hamburgers. Here’s a quick quiz question – how many people signed the Declaration of Independence? We’re betting that few of you, not including the people who compulsively Googled that question, knew the answer is 56.

Fifty-six?! Yes, there were far more Founding Fathers than most people learn about in civics class. Last year, we told you about five of these men – Carter Braxton, Button Gwinnett, Robert Treat Paine, Edward Rutledge and William Whipple. As fun as it is to type the names “Button Gwinnett” and “William Whipple,” here are four more founders you may not have heard of.

1. George Read – the one who voted against independence

Yes, it’s true: not all of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were in favor of independence. George Read was the lone holdout when the final vote was held in the Continental Congress on July 2, 1776.

At age 15, Read began studying the law, and he was admitted to the Philadelphia Bar in 1753, when he was only 19 years old. Before he had even passed the bar exam, however, he was entrusted with numerous legal responsibilities under the tutelage of well-respected Pennsylvania lawyer John Moland. Like many of the other Founding Fathers, he stood in opposition to Parliamentary measures like the Stamp Act in the 1760s. But for more than a decade he publicly maintained the belief that the colonies’ interests and Britain’s interests could be peacefully reconciled.

When he was elected to the first Continental Congress on behalf of Delaware, it looked as though his voice would be drowned out by two far more liberal delegates, Thomas McKean and Caesar Rodney. However, Rodney’s asthma and skin cancer kept him out of the legislative body a good deal, which empowered Read enough to endanger Delaware’s participation in the revolution (see #2 below).

Once the revolution had begun, Read defended his state admirably, raising money, troops and supplies to assist the counter-invasion war effort.

2. Caesar Rodney – the one who barely made it

Any numismatists (people who study money) reading this might recognize Caesar Rodney’s name. He shows up on the back of that state’s quarter, mounted on a horse. Why a horse? He was a relatively minor player on the battlefield, but Rodney is best remembered for an all-night ride from Dover, Delaware to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to break a crucial tie in the Continental Congress.

Rodney was one of three delegates to the Congress from Delaware, along with George Read and Thomas McKean. But owing in part to his illnesses, Caesar spent most of his time outside of the capital, usually attending to military duties as a brigadier general in the Delaware militia. He was leading an investigation into Loyalist activity in Sussex County when, on the evening of July 1, he received a dispatch from McKean: on July 2, the delegates were going to vote on whether or not to sever ties from Britain. Read and McKean were deadlocked in their stances on independence – if Delaware was to be a part of the movement, Rodney’s vote was needed to break the tie.

Leaving from his home at midnight, Rodney rode all night through a thunderstorm to the capital. The precise details of Caesar’s Midnight Ride have been skewed a bit as the story entered the folklore – Rodney either arrived at Independence Hall just as the debate was ending or while the vote was already in progress. All versions of the story have the same dramatic ending, though; Rodney entered the hall, unkempt and covered with mud, and announced, “As I believe the voice of my constituents and of all sensible and honest men is in favor of independence, my own judgment concurs with them. I vote for independence.”

This is a pretty nifty story, to be sure. But Rodney may also be remembered for what John Adams said about him: “Caesar Rodney is the oddest-looking man in the world.”

3. John Witherspoon – the one who coined “Americanism”

Originally hailing from Scotland, Rev. John Witherspoon was the only active member of the clergy to sign the Declaration. His legacy in America, though, isn’t in politics, but in education – Witherspoon was the sixth president of the College of New Jersey, now known as Princeton University. It took two years for representatives of the school to get Witherspoon to come to America (his wife in particular was initially opposed to the idea). Once the reverend took over at the helm in 1768, the school flourished.

According to the president’s biography on the Princeton website, he was “a man of strong convictions,” but introduced students to ideas with which he had publicly disagreed. He is remembered as a dynamic intellectual who brought the thinking of the Scottish Enlightenment into the mainstream in the colonies. Indeed, his ideas have a direct link to the nation’s history, since the students who graduated during his tenure included one president (James Madison), one vice-president (Aaron Burr), 60 members of Congress and three Supreme Court justices.

But even though he had only a meek presence in the political sphere, Witherspoon was the person who coined the term “Americanism” in an essay on language. When John Adams visited Princeton in 1774, he met with Witherspoon and was seriously impressed. The future president of the U.S. said the college president was “as high a Son of Liberty, as any man in America.”

On a less historical note, Reese Witherspoon, who played Elle Woods in the Legally Blonde movies, is a direct descendant. John would surely be proud.

4. Robert Morris – the one who went from prince to pauper

Robert Morris made a lot of money off of the Revolutionary War, but without his efforts, the Continental Army might not have made it through to the surrender at Yorktown. He was one of many merchants who spoke out in opposition to the Stamp Act, but the eventual Pennsylvania delegate didn’t get very involved with the American effort until after Lexington & Concord. On July 1, 1776, he actually voted against independence, but unlike George Read, he was more flexible in his views. On the next day, he did not attend the final vote, which ensured that Pennsylvania would be part of the united front against the redcoats.

As George Washington faced down a war that at times looked hopeless, Morris toiled in and out of Congress to help keep the country’s finances afloat. In addition to borrowing money from the states, he sponsored troops on his own on occasion, taking out personal loans and sending them the army’s way. It was Morris who acquired the loan from France that financed Gen. Washington’s Yorktown campaign.

As the Superintendent of Finance under the short-lived Articles of Confederation, Robert demanded that he should personally purchase all Army and Navy supplies and once again fell back on his own checkbook to help stabilize the fledgling country’s budget.

After declining Washington’s offer to be the first Secretary of the Treasury under the new Constitution, Morris became a senator for the state of Pennsylvania. To his detriment, he also began speculating, on overextended credit, in the south and in the District of Columbia. Knowing he couldn’t pay off his debt, he tried to flee creditors, but to no avail. He wound up in debtors’ prison for three years. Upon his release in 1801, his wealth and property had dissipated and, for the next five years until his death, the once-rich Morris lived in poverty.

LOVE CHILD

Grover Cleveland's 'Mamma Mia' Love Child

Grover Cleveland is mostly known for being the only American president to serve two non-consecutive terms... not so much for being one of several possible fathers to an illegitimate son.

Grover Cleveland in 1905 (Wikimedia Commons)During his first campaign for the presidency in 1893, it was revealed by supporters of Republican James G. Blaine that Cleveland had paid child support to Maria Crofts Halpin. But things weren't as clear-cut as they seemed. Cleveland was one of several men who had been involved with Halpin, including Cleveland's friend and law partner Oscar Folsom. 

No one knows who the real father of Oscar Folsom Cleveland was, but it's thought that Cleveland took responsibility because he was the only bachelor among them. Apparently Halpin really got around.

To add an extra layer of weirdness to the situation, Cleveland ended up marrying Oscar Folsom's 21-year-old daughter, Frances, 2 years after taking office in 1886. He was 49 at the time. This was not considered a scandal. One can only hope Folsom and Cleveland were clear on who fathered the girl.

AMERICAN FRONTIER

Between 1887 and 1892, John C.H. Grabill sent 188 photographs to the Library of Congress for copyright protection. Grabill is known as a western photographer, documenting many aspects of frontier life — hunting, mining, western town landscapes and white settlers’ relationships with Native Americans. Most of his work is centered on Deadwood in the late 1880s and 1890s. He is most often cited for his photographs in the aftermath of the Wounded Knee Massacre on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

1

Title: "The Deadwood Coach" Side view of a stagecoach; formally dressed men sitting in and on top of coach. 1889. Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 #

2

Title: Villa of Brule A Lakota tipi camp near Pine Ridge, in background; horses at White Clay Creek watering hole, in the foreground. 1891. Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 #

3

Title: Ox teams at Sturgis, D.T. [i.e. Dakota Territory] Line of oxen and wagons along main street. [between 1887 and 1892] Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 #

4

Title: The last large bull train on its way from the railroad to the Black Hills Summary: Train of oxen and three wagons in open field. 1890. Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 #

5

Title: Freighting in "The Black Hills". Photographed between Sturgis and Deadwood Full view of ox trains, between Sturgis and Deadwood, S.D. 1891. Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 #

6

Title: Freighting in the Black Hills A woman and a boy using bullwhackers to control a train of oxen. [between 1887 and 1892] Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 #

7

Title: At the Dance. Part of the 8th U.S. Cavalry and 3rd Infantry at the great Indian Grass Dance on Reservation Group portrait of Big Foot's (Miniconjou) band and federal military men, in an open field, at a Grass Dance on the Cheyenne River, S.D.--on or near Cheyenne River Indian Reservation. 1890. Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 #

8

Title: Indian chiefs who counciled with Gen. Miles and setteled [sic] the Indian War -- 1. Standing Bull, 2. Bear Who Looks Back Running [Stands and Looks Back], 3. Has the Big White Horse, 4. White Tail, 5. Liver [or Living] Bear, 6. Little Thunder, 7. Bull Dog, 8. High Hawk, 9. Lame, 10. Eagle Pipe Posed group portrait of Lakota chiefs standing in front of tipi--probably on or near Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. 1891. Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 #

9

Title: U.S. School for Indians at Pine Ridge, S.D. Small Oglala tipi camp in front of large government school buildings in open field. 1891. Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 #

10

Title: "Hostile Indian camp" Bird's-eye view of a large Lakota camp of tipis, horses, and wagons--probably on or near Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. 1891. Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 #

11

Title: Indian chiefs who counciled with Gen. Miles and setteled [sic] the Indian War -- 1. Standing Bull, 2. Bear Who Looks Back Running [Stands and Looks Back], 3. Has the Big White Horse, 4. White Tail, 5. Liver [Living] Bear, 6. Little Thunder, 7. Bull Dog, 8. High Hawk, 9. Lame, 10. Eagle Pipe Group portrait of Lakota chiefs, five standing and five sitting with tipi in background--probably on or near Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. 1891. Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA #

12

Title: What's left of Big Foot's band Group of eleven Miniconjou (children and adults) in a tipi camp, probably on or near Pine Ridge Reservation. 1891. Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA #

13

Title: Indian Council in Hostile Camp Rear view of a large semi-circle of Lakota men sitting on the ground, with tipis in background, probably on or near Pine Ridge Reservation. 1891. Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 #

14

Title: "Home of Mrs. American Horse." Visiting squaws at Mrs. A's home in hostile camp Oglala women and children seated inside an uncovered tipi frame in an encampment--most are looking away from the camera--probably on or near Pine Ridge Reservation. 1891. Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 #

15

Title: "Red Cloud and American Horse." The two most noted chiefs now living Two Oglala chiefs, American Horse (wearing western clothing and gun-in-holster) and Red Cloud (wearing headdress), full-length portrait, facing front, shaking hands in front of tipi--probably on or near Pine Ridge Reservation. 1891. Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 #

16

Title: The Great Hostile Camp Bird's-eye view of a Lakota camp (several tipis and wagons in large field)--probably on or near Pine Ridge Reservation. 1891. Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 #

17

Title: "Little," the instigator of Indian Revolt at Pine Ridge Little, Oglala band leader, full-length studio portrait seated between two Euro-American men who are standing on either side of him; Chris Mathison (?) on left. 1890. Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 #

18

Title: Deadwood Central R.R. Engineer Corps Outdoor group portrait of ten railroad engineers and a dog, posing with surveyors' transits on tripods and measuring rods, on the side of a mountain. Most of the men are sitting; all are wearing suits and hats. [1888] Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 #

19

Title: "A pretty view." At "picnic" grounds on Homestake Road Distant view of a train engine and several cars against a large wooded area. 1890. Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 #

20

Title: "Horse Shoe Curve." On B[urlington] and M[issouri River] R'y. Buckhorn Mountains in background Bird's-eye view of a train on tracks, just beyond a marked curve. 1891. Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 #

21

Title: "Hot Springs, S.D." From the Fremont, Elkhorn and M.V. Ry. bridge looking north to Fred T. Evans residence and plunge bath Bird's-eye view of a developing small town with railroad track running through it. Large buildings on hilltops in background. 1891. Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 #

22

Title: "Giant Bluff." Elk Canyon on Black Hills and Ft. P. R.R. A two-car train in front of a steep cliff; several passengers are posing in front of the train. 1890. Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 #

23

Title: Happy Hours in Camp. G. and B.&M. Engineers Corps and Visitors Small group of men and women and two deer in front of a tent. Some of the men are playing musical instruments. 1889. Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 #

24

Title: [Engineers Corps camp and visitors] Row of fifteen people and two deer in front of a tent. Some of the men are holding measuring poles and or standing next to surveyors' transits on tripods. 1889. Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 #

25

Title: General Miles and staff Six military men on horseback on a hill overlooking a large encampment of tipis. 1891. Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 #