Photo Essays
Hell on Wheels: LIFE With Mutant Bicycles
Every year, more and more people in the United States are clambering aboard their beloved bicycles and blithely pedaling into a brighter, cleaner, healthier...
Ella and Friends: Color Portraits of the First Lady of Song and Other Jazz Legends
In a January 1955 article titled “New Life for U.S. Jazz,” LIFE magazine noted that the genre’s popularity was growing faster than almost any other form of music...
Manhattan Fantasy: The Woolworth Building at 100
Opened 100 years ago today (April 24, 1913) when President Woodrow Wilson pushed a button that lit up every floor at once, the steel-frame Woolworth Building in...
City at a Crossroads: Chicago Confronts Urban Blight, 1954
Chicago is one of the world’s great cities — and most of the cliché that have long stuck to the Windy City (so named because of its long-winded politicians, not...
Empire State of Mind: In Praise of New York’s Second-Tallest — and Most Beloved — Building
When 1 World Trade Center reaches its final, dizzying height, topped off with a distinctive stainless-steel spire, the glass-sheathed structure will be the...
PHOTOS: U.S. Newspapers Lead with Explosions at Boston Marathon Finish Line
On the morning after two bombs blew up near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, newspapers around the country devoted their front pages to images of bloodied...
Let Fury Have the Hour: Early Days in the Fight for Gay Rights
In late 1971, two years after the Stonewall riots in New York sparked the modern gay rights movement in America, and twelve months before LIFE ceased publishing...
A House Divided: Photos From Korea’s 1948 Yeosu-Suncheon Rebellion
A few years before the Korean Peninsula erupted in the civil war that saw the North and the South (and the U.S. and China) engaged in a conflict that would help...
Chicago and Midwest Pummeled with Snow…Again
Beyond a line extending from Minneapolis to Chicago, midwesterners watched as nearly a foot of snow piled on the region. Roughly 1,000 flights at Chicago...
I Was in LIFE: Kim Novak Remembers
In the early 1950s, right around the time she stole scenes as a pretty young thing driving Jack Lemmon nuts in the oddly titled 1954 comedy, Phffft!, Kim Novak...
Women of Steel: LIFE With Female Factory Workers in World War II
The character of “Rosie the Riveter” — as feminist symbol, World War II icon and mid-century heroine — is so ingrained in the American psyche that it’s sometimes...
Fire and Ice: Hundreds of Firefighters Fight Massive Blaze on Chicago’s South Side
The city’s largest fire in seven years took nearly 200 firefighters about two hours to extinguish as the blaze ripped through an abandoned warehouse on the...
Behind the Picture: ‘Dewey Defeats Truman’
Triumph. That’s the look on President Harry Truman’s face. Sheer, unadulterated triumph. In fact, of the countless politics-related photographs made over, say,...
LIFE With Guns: ‘Drawing a Bead on Safety,’ 1956
[NOTE: LIFE.com is aware that encountering images of guns and children in a classroom might be distressing to some readers — even if those images were made...
Chicago's Daleys: History of a Dynasty
Richard M. Daley's announcement that he will not seek re-election brings an end to a political dynasty that has lasted more than five decades
Rahm Emanuel Runs for Mayor of Chicago
Photographer Callie Shell trails Obama's former chief of staff as he makes a run for his hometown's top job
Obama's Victory Celebration in Chicago
Scores of thousands gather to cheer for the President elect
Photos: Political Buttons in U.S. History
The Button Museum in Chicago portrays the history of American politics through the prism of a simple accessory
The End of Cabrini-Green
After a long, troubled history, the notorious Chicago housing complex is closed for good
Grant Achatz, the Culinary Miracle Worker
The award-winning restauranteur has created a culinary laboratory at his Chicago restaurant Alinea. His dishes are not only mind-blowingly delicious, but...
