40 Beautiful Vintage Covers of Good Housekeeping Magazine From the 1910s

by | May 30, 2026 | Yesteryear

Good Housekeeping is one of America’s most enduring and influential women’s magazines. Founded in 1885, it originally focused on providing practical guidance for homemakers, covering topics such as cooking, cleaning, child-rearing, and household management. Over the years, it evolved into a trusted source of information on family life, health, fashion, and consumer advice.

The magazine is perhaps best known for its famous Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, introduced in 1909, which rigorously tests and certifies products that meet high standards of quality, safety, and performance. For well over a century, Good Housekeeping has reflected and influenced the changing roles of women in American society, balancing traditional domestic values with modern perspectives.
Step back in time to an era of hand-drawn elegance and timeless charm. In the 1910s, the covers of Good Housekeeping magazine were not just pages, they were stunning masterpieces of vintage illustration. These beautiful covers captures the very essence of a bygone era: showcasing the warmth of family life, the evolving grace of Edwardian fashion, and the delicate artistry that defined a generation.
Good Housekeeping cover, August 1910

Good Housekeeping cover, June 1910

Good Housekeeping cover, May 1910

Good Housekeeping cover, September 1910

Good Housekeeping cover, July 1911

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Amazing Photographs Captured Everyday Life of Navajo People in 1948

by | May 30, 2026 | Yesteryear

In 1948, LIFE magazine photographer Leonard McCombe spent weeks documenting the daily lives, struggles, and resilience of the Diné (Navajo) people. Published during a period of severe winter crises and ongoing federal neglect on the reservation, his photo-essay titled “The Navajo” became a landmark piece of mid-century photojournalism.

McCombe’s approach focused intensely on individual human stories rather than detached landscapes, using intimate, unposed black-and-white compositions inside traditional hogans and across the high desert.

The late 1940s were an incredibly challenging time for the Navajo Nation. The combination of a devastating winter blizzard in 1947–1948, strict federal livestock reduction policies that decimated the local sheep-herding economy, and a lack of basic infrastructure left many families facing starvation and disease.
McCombe’s assignment was intended to put a human face on these systemic hardships. Rather than relying on sensationalism, his photographs captured a profound sense of dignity, community, and cultural endurance amidst poverty. Many of his most powerful frames were shot inside the low-light environments of log-and-earth hogans. He frequently used the soft, directional light coming from a central smoke hole or doorway to illuminate his subjects, highlighting textures of woven blankets, silver jewelry, and weather-worn hands. His photographs heavily featured the relationships between generations—elders holding traditional knowledge, mothers managing households under immense pressure, and young children navigating a changing world.
When LIFE published the essay on July 1, 1948, the public response was immediate. The intimate imagery shocked readers across the United States, prompting an influx of private donations, food drives, and increased political pressure that eventually contributed to the passage of the Navajo-Hopi Rehabilitation Act of 1950.
McCombe’s work remains a significant historical record of the era, illustrating both a difficult chapter in twentieth-century Native American history and the enduring strength of the Diné people.
A Navajo family living on a reservation.

The game of marbles, was explained by the boy at center to his brother and sister. This boy, who went to school, learned the game there.

A Navajo woman smoked a hand-rolled cigarette.

A Navajo young man.

This Navajo woman sported Navajo-crafted silver shirt collar caps, beaded earrings, and a beaded necklace complete with silver quarters and 50 cent pieces strung together like a tie.

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Wonderful Photos of Annette Bening as Merteuil on the Set of “Valmont” (1989)

by | May 30, 2026 | Yesteryear

Annette Bening’s portrayal of the Marquise de Merteuil in Miloš Forman’s Valmont (1989) remains one of the most intriguing, yet widely overlooked, period-drama performances of the late 1980s. Stepping into the role of Choderlos de Laclos’s master manipulator just as her Hollywood career was taking off, Bening brought a distinct energy to the set that contrasted sharply with Glenn Close’s fiercely cold, razor-sharp interpretation in Dangerous Liaisons just a year prior.
The behind-the-scenes reality of Valmont was defined by a classic Hollywood “production race.” Miloš Forman and director Stephen Frears were adapting the same 1782 epistolary novel (Les Liaisons dangereuses) at the exact same time. Frears’s version hit theaters first in late 1988, capturing the cultural zeitgeist, critical acclaim, and multiple Academy Awards. When Valmont arrived in late 1989, it was inevitably compared to its predecessor, causing Bening’s brilliant performance to be unjustly obscured.
Forman’s direction and Jean-Claude Carrière’s screenplay leaned away from outright melodrama and toward a lighter, colder, and more structural look at 18th-century French aristocracy. On set, Bening channeled this by infusing Merteuil with a deceptive warmth. She played Merteuil not as an overtly calculating villain, but with an air of sweet, radiant femininity and bright-eyed charm. Her malice was buried under a mask of superficial innocence, making her sudden shifts into ruthless strategic planning feel all the more jarring.
On set, Bening and a young Colin Firth (playing Valmont) established a playful, competitive rapport. Rather than portraying two bitter, aging sociopaths, they played the characters like brilliant, bored children playing a high-stakes game of emotional chess. Theodor Pištěk’s lavish, pastel-hued costume design was heavily utilized by Bening. She used the heavy silks, elaborate corsetry, and expansive wigs of the Rococo era to emphasize Merteuil’s confinement within societal rules, and how she used that very confinement to manipulate the men around her.
Though Valmont underperformed at the box office, Bening’s magnetic performance caught the eye of director Stephen Frears—ironically, the director of the rival Dangerous Liaisons. Impressed by her range, he immediately cast her as the grifter Myra Langtry in The Grifters (1990), which earned Bening her first Oscar nomination and launched her into permanent Hollywood stardom.

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