#robert wands

Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington rehearsing Leonard Feather's song "Long, Long Journey" at the RCA Victor recording studio on January 12, 1946.

Young students getting help with reading problems at a summer reading clinic run by the Board of Education, July 28, 1955. The teacher is helping pupils to recognize words through phonics.

The Cold War loomed large over American life, especially in the 1950s. Here, third graders at P.S. 152 in Queens duck under classroom tables as a civil defense exercise on November 21, 1951. The camera records their actions for the Federal Civil Defense Administration film, “Duck and Cover,” to teach school children about what to do in the event of an atomic attack. (Although how much protection the tables would be is highly debatable.)

Breakfast at Cartier's: jewels on display in the windows of Cartier's attract passersby, who stop and look long at the dazzling pieces while they go shopping on Fifth Avenue, February 17, 1953. Cartier's vast stock of jewels varies from such famous pieces as the huge emerald that once belonged to Empress Catherine of Russia and so-called Lapel Whimsies, such as a golden birdcage filled with jewel birds of paradise.

125th Street is shown lit for the Christmas season from the New York Central RR station, 1954.

Julie Harris applying makeup in her dressing room at the Empire Theatre in January 1952. She was playing Sally Bowles in the play "I Am A Camera," which was later adapted into the musical Cabaret.

"I carry my own parcels home," says the brave Emily Post of etiquette fame on January 25, 1943. "A bulky parcel is a woman's badge of good wartime service."

English language students learn to pronounce "th," as in "My other brother sent the Christmas wreath," January 14, 1943.