#Grey Villet

[inthedarktrees]

“Tireless, Talky Teen-agers Keep Telephone Lines Toiling”

Grey Villet, Life, Apr 2, 1956

[henk-heijmans]

Schoolkids learning firearm safety in rural Indiana, 1956 - by Grey Villet (1927 - 2000), American

[newyorkthegoldenage]

Mamie Till-Mobley, the mother of young Emmett Till, who was abducted, tortured, and lynched in Mississippi on August 28, 1955, addresses a crowd of 15,000 in Harlem later that year.

In her autobiography Death of Innocence: The Story Of The Hate Crime That Changed America, Till-Mobley wrote:

It is not that I dwell on the past. But the past shapes the way we are in the present and the way we will become what we are destined to become. It is only because I have finally understood the past, accepted it, embraced it, that I can fully live in the moment. And hardly a moment goes by when I don’t think about Emmett, and the lessons a son can teach a mother.

Photo: Grey Villet via Life magazine Instagram

[freddie-my-love]

Fred Astaire rehearsing for Astaire Time, photographed by Grey Villet, 1960

[acervorevolucionario]

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz por Grey Villet.

Havana, Cuba, 1959 / Foto: Grey Villet

[federer7]

Peggy, Sidney and Donald, seen here playing in the fields near their Virginia home. 1965

(Mildred and Richard Loving's children)

Photograph: Grey Villet

[lisamarie-vee]

[eyesfullofmoon]

"Photo essay on teenagers and telephones, 1956."

Photographed by Grey Villet.

[nevver]

The Lovings, Grey Villet

[hexjulia]

reading more about atomic gardening and this is so much fun. to read about that is. it also seems fun to do, but. you know. anyway:

"The story of these citizen-pioneers of mutagenesis (the technical term for creating genetic change through the application of chemical, physical, and biological agents) is full of fantastic details, from Muriel Howorth’s propagandising ballet-mime, Isotopia, which involved a cast of Knowledge, Electron, Proton, Neutron, Rat, and Cow, as well as a working geiger counter, to Tennessee-based atomic entrepreneur C.J. Speas irradiating trays of seedlings into his backyard bunker.

IMAGE: C.J. Speas giving a tour of his radioactive bunker to high school students, photo by Grey Villet for Life, via Pruned.

Perhaps the most bizarre detail in the interview, however, is the news that these gamma gardens are still in operation, relatively unchanged in design since the 50s, in the grounds of national laboratories today. Their circular form, which, as Johnson notes, bears more than a passing resemblance to the atomic danger symbol, “was simply based upon the need to arrange the plants in concentric circles around the radiation source which stood like a totem in the center of the field.”

It was basically a slug of radioactive material within a pole; when workers needed to enter the field it was lowered below ground into a lead lined chamber. There were a series of fences and alarms to keep people from entering the field when the source was above ground. The amount of radiation received by the plants naturally varied according to how close they were to the pole. So usually a single variety would be arranged as a ‘wedge’ leading away from the pole, so that the effects of a range of radiation levels could be evaluated. Most of the plants close to the pole simply died. A little further away, they would be so genetically altered that they were riddled with tumors and other growth abnormalities. It was generally the rows where the plants ‘looked’ normal, but still had genetic alterations, that were of the most interest, that were ‘just right’ as far as mutation breeding was concerned!

Over at GOOD, Peter Smith recently described a similar layout at the still-active Institute of Radiation Breeding, in Hitachiohmiya, Japan, which has “has a 88.8 Terabecquerel Cobalt-60 source, ringed by a 3,608-foot radius Gamma field (the world’s largest), and a 28-foot high shield dike around the perimeter.”

IMAGE: A gamma garden at Brookhaven National Labs, New York, c. 1958; image provided by Paige Johnson, via Pruned.

IMAGE: Aerial view of the Institute of Radiation Breeding, Hitachiohmiya, Japan.

As it turns out, far from being a fantastic fossil from the future that never was, along with jetpacks and flying cars, atomic gardening is alive and well today. According to a 2007 New York Times story, which quotes Dr. Pierre Lagoda, head of plant breeding and genetics at the International Atomic Energy Agency, radiation breeding is actually experiencing a renaissance, due to the introduction of “new methods that speed up the identification of mutants.”

IMAGE: Mutant crop varieties mapped by The New York Times.

What’s more, the Times adds, nearly 2,000 gamma radiation-induced mutant crop varieties have been registered around the world, including Calrose 76, a dwarf varietal that accounts for about half the rice grown in California, and the popular Star Ruby and Rio Red grapefruits, whose deep colour is a mutation produced through radiation breeding in the 1970s. Similarly, Johnson tells Pruned that “most of the global production of mint oil,” with an annual market value estimated at $930 million, is extracted from the “wilt-resistant ‘Todd’s Mitcham’ cultivar, a product of thermal neutron irradiation.” She adds that “the exact nature of the genetic changes that cause it to be wilt-resistant remain unknown.”

IMAGE: “Pierre Lagoda, the head of plant breeding and genetics at the International Atomic Energy Agency, showing mutated plants at a greenhouse in Austria,” photo by Herwig Prammer for The New York Times."

[inthedarktrees]

“Teen-Age Girls: They Live in a Wonderful World of Their Own,” Life, Dec 11, 1944

[henk-heijmans]

Mildred loving, 1965 - by Grey Villet (1927 - 2000), American

[beakyspecialpics]

Grey Villet. A policeman meets a sculpture of Turkish belly dancer Nejla Ates in Central Park, New York, 1955.

[paolo-streito-1264]

Grey Villet. A policeman meets a sculpture of Turkish belly dancer Nejla Ates in Central Park, New York, 1955.

[myfathersdaughter1]

Fred Astaire rehearsing with dance partner, Barrie Chase, for a television program in the United States, September 1960.

(📷 Grey Villet/LIFE Picture Collection)

#LIFEMagazine #GreyVillet #FredAstaire #LIFELegends #Icon #BarrieChase #1960s Show Less

[cosmicanger]

white cowboy propaganda photos by Grey Villet c.1960s