Extra LIFE Magazine Photography, Part One

In my search for rounding up jeep related photos that have appeared within the pages of LIFE Magazine over the years I came across many extras that did not make it into the original albums. These first six photographers- Eisenstaedt, Elisofson, Feininger, Hoffman, Kessel and Mydans are the first half of what I’ve found after the original entries made their way into the archive. There are many great photos that I had never seen before and was surprised to find buried mainly within the Google search archive of LIFE Magazine. Some are taken from websites and are not the full resolution images of the originals that I have not yet found. If you have a link for any of them please email me at thisoldjeepdotcom@gmail.com.

Come back next week and we’ll have the second batch of ‘extras’ that I think you’ll enjoy as much as these.

PS. Look closely at the photos and you may discover some neat details like these two-

Kessel came up with these two, I love the stenciled wartime “United We Stand” on the overhead crane. Also of note is the experimental ‘X13’ number on the front bumper of the MB tearing through a field in back of the Willys-Overland plant (note the smoke stacks in the background...). These X numbers were used by Willys to designate experimental modifications or prototypes from the CJ-1 AgriJeeps to the elusive CJ-4, the X151. No word on what the X13 may have been being tested for. It doesn’t appear in Fred Coldwell’s “Preproduction Civilian Jeep” list. Click here to see the full albums of photos.

More Uncredited LIFE Photography

This week we have another 18 photos that came from the pages of LIFE Magazine. Many of them are gems from the early days of the jeep, a slat grill Willys MB on a scrap metal drive, a Bantam BRC-60 splashing through the mud and then the cowboy in the modern chuck wagon! I found these and many more through Google’s archiving of the LIFE collection and as well as from various websites. Many were found through G503.com and the CJ3-B Page which are also great sources of info. I really did not know what I was going to find next, but there is alot more out there than I had originally thought. Unfortunately in this collection I do not have any credits as to the photographers. If you have any info please write me at thisoldjeepdotcom@gmail.com so I can properly attribute them.

Come back next week and I’ll start going through the additional photos that I have found belonging to photographers that we’ve already covered. And don’t forget that you can always find something for yourself or for any other jeep lover in your life at our online marketplace. From t-shirts to caps, bags, phone cases and mugs you can find them here. And this week in honor of the Olympic Games, its 15% off everything in the store.

Uncredited Photos From The LIFE Magazine Archive

As many shots as I found through Google and their stellar archiving of the LIFE Magazine photo collection there seem to be as many that are accessible through random Google searches that pop up in web pages. As I was collecting and downloading the photos directly through Google I found these and the search began again. I’m still trying to do an exhaustive compilation of them. As of today after these 39 I still have about another 120 images that I’ve found.

Enjoy these as I don’t think that to many of these have been seen too often. I know that alot of them were completely new to me. There are also many photos in which the jeep isn’t necessarily the main focus of the photo and it may just be a background detail. I almost didn’t include these shots, but then thought that the jeep was such a common thing to find amidst the huge scale of a world war. But, regardless, in the spotlight or not, the jeep was always there, always willing and always able to serve. And so these photos are included as well.

Come back next week and I’ll try to include more. I also have extra credited photos from many photographers that I have already covered that I found afterwards that I’ll be adding. These today all come from one website. Its called miljeep.com and its a French website and can be found here. A big thumbs up to them! There are quite a few more just from this website alone, so be patient I’ll try to get to them as soon as possible, but this project is turning out to be a longer one than I had originally thought that it would be!

In the meanwhile you can always visit our online store here and check out the Friday the 13th sale... 13.13% off everything in the store for the rest of the weekend!

The This-Old-Jeep.com 2012 Calendar- July

Its mid-summer and the weather has been pretty cooperative for outdoor activities like picnics. These photos came from a small collection from a woman who spent some time in post-war Japan. Its hard to say exactly why she was there, but quite possibly she was the wife of a serviceman stationed there in occupation duty. The Allied occupation lasted until 1952, 60 years ago this year. In any case, this lady had access to one of many MBs and she made good use of them.  One of the uses for the MB was to get away from things on this picnic with friends. The inscription reads “Picnic of K-Rations (Ugh!) near Miyanoshita, Japan 1946. Later in the day we took the top down & did I get sunburned!”

It seems that even with the jeep there are two things that you still can’t get away from, Army food and the sun! Interestingly enough, Miyanoshita is the home of the famous Fujiya Hotel, the first hotel in Japan to cater to Western tourists. It was requisitioned as an R&R center for the Allied occupation forces in the post-war era. You’ll see a bit more of this woman. I have two other photos from this set that will eventually make their way into the calendar and into our database here.

I was hoping to get back to uncredited photos in the LIFE magazine photo archive, but I just haven’t finished researching and discovering all of the photos. I have another 120 anonymous images and am only about halfway through my research so who knows how many I’ll find! Stay tuned and I’ll try to get to them by next week.

In the meanwhile we have a new t-shirt available in the store that I designed using great ads from the 1960’s and we now have the new This-Old-Jeep.com bumper sticker available. Check them out!

Peter Stackpole, LIFE Photographer

Peter Stackpole was one of the first photographers on the staff for LIFE Magazine when it began as a weekly in 1936 along with such luminaries as Alfred Eisenstaedt and Margaret Bourke-White. He was also known as a longtime chronicler of life in California and as such shot such images as the lucky lifeguard’s CJ (along with bathing beauties...). He also shot the second outing of the Hemet Jeep Cavalcade in 1949 in southern California near the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. The Anza-Borrego S.P. is the largest in California comprising 500 miles of dirt road, hiking trails and wilderness areas. The Hemet Jeep Club is still going today and is one of the oldest automobile clubs in the country. The HJC still stands for the same things today that it did then, the safe and responsible enjoyment of the trails available for the off road community.

When Stackpole tagged along in 1949 he shot a huge variety of great shots of early CJs, MBs, GPWs and even Ford GPs on the trail. These photos are some of my favorites in the LIFE Magazine Photo Archive. They show the original bare bones approach and the genesis of the use of the jeep for a vehicle of play rather than simply as a workhorse. Everyone looked like they had a great time on this ride and it sets the bar for what would be a good trail ride today! More info can be found here at eWillys on this trail ride. Enjoy them! You’ve probably seen some of these photos before but now you may get to see what I hope is all of them here.

Come back next week when I will start going through many of the anonymous or uncredited LIFE photos that I’ve discovered since beginning this project. I hope that there will be some surprises for you here. Check out all of the photos thus far here.