A series of photographs of teenage boys in Des Moines, Iowa, 1945, by LIFE photographer Nina Leen. Is it just me or were they much cuter in the 40s than the 00s?
On the bus. Source
Reading comic books. Source
At the soda shop. Source
Listening to music. Source
At the movie theatre. Source
Just chillin'. Source
Yes, there's maps on the ceiling, but there's also pin-ups by the desk! Source
The very important combed wave. Source
Typical teenage boy fashion, according to the caption. Source
Dressed up for a date. Source
"Loofing around". Source
Driving badly... Source
Er, playing with guns? Source
I wish this one had a caption. Someone's older brother wounded in the war, maybe? Source
Drinking coke and eating Cheezits. Source
Checking out the hair and withdrawing the indispensable comb. Source
Bugging the girls, of course. Source
10 comments:
I can't be more eloquent than: cuuuuute ^_^ !
These are great! Bauder's Drug is still on ingersoll ave, and is still a soda fountain too.
Ah, that is so cool to hear! Thanks for sharing!
Cuter back then? They certainly dressed better and with more style than boys of today--even random, unposed photos of the era reveal that.
Hehe, yeah-- a bit of fashion sense and style goes an awful long way... ;)
ANNA IS A WIERDO AHAHAHHA!
Ahhh I love the photos especially the last one! you're right the boys back then were something else ;)
^^^Agreed, agreed, agreed! The boys then were WAY cuter than today's boys. Everything about them was cuter! :) And the clothes....well, I'm speechless really. When I compare them to today's slobby jeans and nasty T shirts, baseball hats and the inner city gangster look of our present young man, I certainly long for a different era.....Oh to have been young in the 40's! :)
Without today's young men around back then to compare the 40's crop with, they'd just be "the boys" around like the ones we have now. Could be that the next couple of generations will become the ones we will be comparing today's with in a favorable manner! You never know, and never ever say it can't get any worse, because it sure has!
And if you check out the young ladies of that time in the same way, I think there's an awful lot to say about their appearance, sense of style, and behavior, compared to many of the ones I see out in public, and in pictures now, both in photographs, and in the media.
The nicely dressed, well groomed, good looking, well mannered young men back then were looking for young ladies with the same characteristics. Young ladies with no manners, no morals, no style and no grooming standards may have been the ones with the reputation for being "fun" on a date, but they had another kind of reputation too, and they weren't the ones the boys took home with them to meet the family. Or to make one with.
Oh yes--1940s girls may totally have looked at photographs of men in the 1890s and thought, oh, if only boys were like that today! And I'm sure in many ways teens of the time (of both sexes) were often just as immature and moody and reckless as today, just expressed differently. Still, given well-groomed, well-dressed, and generally polite emotional teenagers vs. those of today....
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