And though the attire has evolved somewhat throughout the decades, the hats have remained a constant. The picnicking women therefore wore hats and gloves with their dresses.
#JIM MORRISON ALFRED EISENSTAEDT FULL#
They knew that part of creating allure for the event would be positioning it as a fashion event - so the dress code required “ full morning dress” for men and women from the start. So, in pursuit of his vision, Clark and his wife enlisted the ladies of Louisville to attend the races to picnic with friends.
But if wouldn’t do for the new race to seem seedy. Though races were a mainstay for British and French society, American women at the time might have hesitated to stay away from horse racing, and the gambling and drinking that went along with it. He raised money for a racetrack outside of Louisville, Ky., and held the first Kentucky Derby in 1875. decided to establish a similar high-profile horse race in America. It was after traveling to the famed Derby races in England and the Grand Prix de Paris in France in 1872, that Col. Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletterįashion has always been an important part of the Kentucky Derby.
Now, however, the grandstand at Churchill Downs is one of the rare places in America where elaborate headwear is the norm, and at the race this Saturday the hats are sure to be a focal point. And one look at the vintage Kentucky Derby photos above will reveal that such a situation continued well into the race’s history: many women and men wore hats, but they weren’t the outrageous (and often ridiculous) hats for which the race is known today. The piece, “In Louisville,” contained TIME’s first-ever reference to Kentucky Derby hats-but at the time, the hats were hardly remarkable. “The stands seemed to sway, to swell with it hats and parasols and a foam of faces rose, hesitated for an instant on the top of the wave, settled slowly down into a whisperless silence. “The long roar thundered like a wave, grumbled like a rising sea-surge through the crowd down the long stretch,” the piece continued. 2007.“They’r-r-re OFF!” wrote TIME in a 1926 recap of the Kentucky Derby. With an inherently optimistic and affectionate perspective, Eisenstaedt’s most famous images continue to hold a significant place in cultural memory.įeatured: Alfred Eisenstaedt, People on steps of New York Public Library, 1944. In a time before television was commonplace, these photographs were instrumental in forming readers’ views of the world and exposing them to people, places, and lifestyles they could not otherwise visualize. As a member of Life’s staff from its first issue in 1936 until it ceased regular publication in 1972, Eisenstaedt contributed over 2,500 photo-essays and ninety-two cover photos. The groundbreaking magazine featured large, high quality photographs on topics that ranged from major world news to human curiosities, and reached a substantial number of readers each week.
These decades, known today as “The Golden Age of Photojournalism,” were an exciting and prolific period for the format, fueled by the popularity of image-heavy publications like Life. Capturing sincere expressions and natural behaviors, this selection of gelatin silver prints conveys Eisenstaedt’s intimate and thoughtful impressions of a variety of social subjects from 1930 to the 1950s. One of the most recognized photojournalists of the twentieth century, Alfred Eisenstaedt (born Dirschau, West Prussia, 1898–1995) was a master of candid photography whose widely published work informed and amused millions of Americans. Drawing from over 350 photographs by the famed photojournalist in The San Diego Museum of Art’s broad photographic collection, this exhibition explores Eisenstaedt’s observations on society from a variety of his assignments with Life magazine.
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