Blimps, burlesque and brass bands: America takes flight – in pictures

Here we see tourists gazing down on the Chicago River from the roof of the Tribune Building. _National Geographic: The United States of America is published by Taschen_ Until the 1920s, National Geographic stories focused on American industry, agriculture and public works. But soon after they started to give way to stories that put more emphasis on images of Americans at leisure, enjoying the fruits of their labours. The images, increasingly shot and reproduced in colour, offered readers a temporary escape from the struggle and monotony of everyday life.

Here, local kids shovel the hockey rink on the Whitefield common, flooded by the town, so they can play ‘There was an aspirational aspect to the way National Geographic viewed and covered America,’ says Thomas Kennedy, the magazine’s director of photography in the 1990s. For most of the 20th century, the editors portrayed America’s best self-image, as seen through the lens of white middle-class and middle-American sensibilities. National Geographic photography reinforced these idealised narratives that were familiar to almost every schoolchild.

Here, Autumn’s golden glory surrounds children returning from school in Wiscasset Getting some ink in Norfolk, Virginia, back when sailors were tattoo parlours’ best, and virtually only, customers Alabama, The Historic Alabama Theater in Birmingham, 2014, Susan Seubert ‘Showplace of the south’, and indeed it was when those doors first opened in 1927. The theatre was Paramount’s showcase movie palace, beckoning patrons from across the southeast into its plush, gold-leafed interior West 138th Street in Harlem on Memorial Day, closed to traffic but open to the neighbourhood’s inhabitants Burlesque legend Blaze Starr reigns over Baltimore’s bawdy ‘block’ of strip-clubs and grindhouses. Characters like Starr, John Waters and Divine drew the attention of the world to their city, the quirky metropolis of Maryland The historic Chicago ‘L’ elevated rapid transit system encircles 35 blocks of shops, offices and hotels, as it navigates downtown Trumpeter Kenneth Terry and the New Birth Brass Band play at Preservation Hall, two years after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

Curving shields protect picnic tables from the blowing wind and glaring sun From an otherworldly pulpit, a National Parks Service guide addresses visitors to Mammoth Cave, the world’s longest known cave system at 390 miles of passageway. Standing on the same rock in 1876, actor Edwin Booth delivered Hamlet’s soliloquy, giving the chamber its name: Booth’s Amphitheater brass bands: America takes flight – in pictures A new Taschen book comprising 700 images from the National Geographic’s archives charts a dramatic century of dizzying change in the US 1. #### A ‘hero’ pilot, plumber and dentist among those who saved flydubai flight to Israel 2. #### Police search for additional victims as two bodies discovered in California 3. #### Tennessee woman on death row taken to hospital after surviving two lethal injections 4. #### ‘Hitler was a lazy criminal who slept in until noon’: why most of what we think we know about the rise of the Nazis is wrong 5. #### Nurse charged with helping man in hospital escape from ICE custody 6. #### ‘The Savage Skulls were the most dangerous gang in the Bronx’: Jean-Pierre Laffont’s best photograph 7. #### Iranian singer’s 74 lashes for performing without a hijab ‘a form of torture’, say rights groups 8. #### Hegseth confirms plan to cut 20% of US top military brass and rails at ‘beardos, weirdos and wimps’ 10. #### Texts about alleged Cornell gang-rape released after investigation reopened 1. #### ‘The Savage Skulls were the most dangerous gang in the Bronx’: Jean-Pierre Laffont’s best photograph 2. #### Blimps, burlesque and brass bands: America takes flight – in pictures 3. #### Van Gogh goes on display before sale of ‘almost mythical’ private collection 4. #### Renoir and Love review – the happiest exhibition of the year? Pourquoi pas! 5. #### Explosions of colour, cold war paranoia and hyper-erotic intimacy: five free shows to see 6. #### Radioactive trees to fighting fish: the best of Photoworks festival 2026 – in pictures 7. #### Structural decline: what happened to Japan’s iconic buildings? – in pictures 8. #### JMW Turner’s ‘great love letter’ to Rome makes brief return to city before UK auction 9. #### ‘Who do they dream of becoming?’ Teenage girls in America – in pictures 10. #### ‘We got naked and covered ourselves in Vaseline’: Katherine Hubbard on photographing her ailing mother