1960s: HMV, Oxford Street, London

1902: The Thomas W. Lawson










“The Thomas W. Lawson was a seven-masted schooner originally planned for the Pacific trade but used primarily to haul coal and oil along the East Coast of the United States. The ship was the largest pure sailing vessel ever built.

“Her design and purpose was an ultimately unsuccessful bid to keep sailing ships competitive with steam ships”

- Wikipedia

1859-1899: Ironclads




The Monitor and Merrimac - The First Fight Between Ironclads (1886)














“Ironclads were steam-propelled warships protected by armor plates. The rapid pace of change in the ironclad period meant that many ships were obsolete as soon as they were complete”
- Wikipedia

1868: Steam Robot





“Zadoc P. Dederick, along with Isaac Grass, was the creator of a steam-powered humanlike robot designed to pull a cart.”

- Wikipedia

c. 1879: The Darby steam-digger





Image with consent of the descendants of Robert Hasler.

The Darby Steam-Digger, a light traction engine, was invented circa 1879 by farmer Thomas Darby and built at Lodge Farm Pleshey, near Chelmsford in Essex, England. Robert Hasler, seen driving the Digger, helped to build this first prototype.

In effect the machine was an early tractor designed mainly for ploughing, and could accomplish 1-acre (4,000 m2) an hour (1 m²/s) to a maximum depth of 14 inches (360 mm). This first digger was constructed on pedestrian principles and had six “feet” and really did walk over the fields. Unfortunately it jumped too much to be really successful. The digger was later modified to have wheels in place of the legs.

-Wikipedia

1914-1918: Dazzle-Ships























“Dazzle camouflage was a paint scheme used on ships extensively during World War I and to a lesser extent in World War II. It consisted of a complex pattern of geometric shapes in contrasting colours, interrupting and intersecting each other.

“Dazzle did not conceal the ship but made it difficult for the enemy to estimate its type, size, speed and heading. The idea was to disrupt the visual rangefinders used for naval artillery. Its purpose was confusion rather than concealment.”

- Wikipedia

1940: World’s Fair Hairstyle

1945-1946: Midget Submarines
















“At the end of World War II, Allied Occupation forces found hundreds of midget submarines built and building in Japan, including large numbers of the “Koryu” type. Many of these boats were in massed groups at shipyards and naval bases”

Pre WWII: US Navy Ships in the Panama Canal

“These postcards of US Navy ships passing through the Panama Canal were probably take in the years before Pearl Harbor.  My father was stationed in the Canal Zone at the beginning of 1945 in preparation for the invasion of Japan.  Obviously photography of this kind would not have been permitted during the war.”

- Thomas Pozarek

1939-1945: U.S. Navy Food Posters