Not sure if this story hit national press, but my local paper, The Journal News, interviewed a dentist who researched the cause and circumstances of Babe Ruth’s death, and he says Ruth died of nasopharyngeal carcinoma — not throat cancer, commonly believed to have been brought on in part by Ruth’s fondness for tobacco and liquor.

At left is a Ralph Morse photograph of Babe Ruth, in uniform, addressing the crowd and press during his final appearance at Yankee Stadium (shortly before death). This rare color image of Babe Ruth leaning on his bat for his final appearance at Yankee Stadium on June 13, 1948. Ruth’s #3 uniform was retired during this appearance, which was also the 25th anniversary of Yankee Stadium, known as “The House That Ruth Built.” Ruth died at age 53, reportedly of throat cancer, shortly after this photograph was taken. Since LIFE magazine only published one page of color pictures in 1948, the magazine did not print this photograph.

Dorian Leigh, multifaceted Cover Girl of the 1940s passed away on July 7th, at the age of 91. Quoting her New York Times Obit: “Dorian Leigh, combined pristine blue eyes, curling eyelashes, an arresting intelligence and intoxicating sexuality to become one of history’s most photographed models — perhaps the first to truly merit the adjective ’super’.” Leigh graced seven Vogue covers in 1946, and in the next six years appeared on more than 50 more covers of various magazines.

According to the Times, Eileen Ford, the doyenne of the modeling agency industry, said in an interview with the Roanoke Times in 1997, “Dorian was truly the best model of our time. She instinctively knew what every photographer wanted, and she came alive just at the moment the shutter clicked.”

Dorian Leigh was photographed by many of the greatest photographers of the 1940s and 50s, including Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, Cecil Beaton, Louise Dahl-Wolfe and LIFE photographer, Gjon Mili.

Above is a Gjon Mili photograph, ca. 1950, of Dorian Leigh modeling a white organdy shirt with full print skirt by Ceil Chapman.

I’ve been away from our blog for over a month now — much of that time spent deep in the archives of LIFE magazine, known as The Picture Collection. I’ve been searching for important vintage prints for three gallery selling exhibitions: 40 Years Ago Today (July 5 - November 27) at Monroe Gallery in Santa Fe; Leaders and their Followers (August 1 - November 30) at GALLERY M in Denver; and LIFE: Vintage and Classics (September 1 - November 30) at Gallery Old Town in San Diego. I’ll bet I’ve looked through some 5,000 vintage prints — a mere fraction of the 20 million piece collection of prints, negatives, and transparencies, which comprise The Picture Collection.

Almost all the LIFE vintage prints date from 1936 to 1972 — the dates that LIFE was published as a weekly magazine. I am of an age that I remember receiving LIFE at home — quite a large magazine to this kid. These days, I try to help younger folks imagine a world with only three television networks, as well as a world before that — well into the 1950s — where there was no television network news. (Network television has only existed in America since 1948, and color television didn’t become commercially viable until the early 1960s.) I like to say, “LIFE was the CNN of its day.” (Ironically, both LIFE and CNN are now part of the same media empire, Time-Warner Communications.)

The vintage prints I sorted through over the past weeks are the actual prints used to make LIFE magazine. Perhaps approaching hyperbole, I felt that I literally “held history in my hands.” Almost more gripping than the images is the detail provided on the back of each print. Captions, keywords, date and use stamps, photographer and printer stamps are some of the details one might find on the back of these prints. These contemporaneous notations record the pictured history in words, while multiple usage stamps offer proof of the “importance” of such photographs by indicating the many publications of the photograph.

I hope you will have a chance to check out one or more of three very special historic photography exhibitions, in Santa Fe, Denver or San Diego, each of which features one-of-a-kind vintage prints from the archives of LIFE magazine, like this classic image taken by LIFE photographer John Loengard, which appeared in LIFE, February 28, 1964 (front/back):

I am a baseball fan — a New York Yankees fan, to be specific. Not sure if I approve of interleague play, but there’s no denying it’s popular among fans. This week, the Yanks returned to Pittsburgh, the site of the 1960 World Series, won by the Pirates with Bill Mazeroski’s game-ending Game 7 home run off Yankees reliever Ralph Terry at Forbes Field.

Shown above is one of the most famous sports photographs ever taken, by New Zealand-born LIFE photographer, George Silk. Here, University of Pittsburgh students cheer wildly from atop Cathedral of Learning on school’s campus as they look down on Forbes Field where the Pittsburgh Pirates are winning their first World Series in 35 years against the NY Yankees. Only 29 prints of this iconic image were printed and signed by Silk.

Here’s an enjoyable article from yesterday’s New York Times which describes Pirate fans who still gather at the site of the old Forbes Field every October 13th anniversary of this unlikely victory 48 years ago.

Federal administration of lighthouses dates from the earliest days of the U.S. government. The ninth act passed by the First Federal Congress in 1789 transferred 12 state lighthouses to federal hands. (source: Prologue, the quarterly magazine of the national Archives and Records Administration, Summer 2008; Vol. 40; No. 2)

The records of the U.S. Coast Guard’s former Bureau of Lighthouses include several thousand drawings of lighthouses and life-saving stations in the United States, the earliest of which were designed in the 1790s. By Act of the first Congress, the Secretary of the Treasury took on the responsibility for all lighthouses and aids to navigation. In 1910, Congress established the Bureau of Lighthouses, which was first operated by the Department of Commerce and Labor, and later by the Coast Guard. Today, the Coast Guard is part of the Department of Homeland Security.

At left is Long Island Head Lighthouse, designed by C. Hastings, May 20, 1844. Long Island, the longest and largest (214 acres) of the 34 islands in Boston Harbor, has seen many uses; it’s been home to a resort hotel, military fortifications, cottages occupied by fishermen, a hospital, and even a missile base. In 1842, an old lighthouse there was deemed to be cracked and leaky, so a new cast-iron lighthouse - the first of its type in the United States - was built in its place. This image is a reproduction of an original “as-built” architectural drawing of the new, replacement lighthouse. It was cast in sections, surmounted by a cast iron domed roof at a height of 34 feet. A cast iron pipe, extending from the bottom to the summit, served as a flue for the stove and a circular staircase of cast iron was constructed around it.

iPHOTOART sells digitally restored prints of this and other lighthouses, which are part of the National Archives Collection.