See 10 Iconic Photos From the LIFE Magazine Archive

2 minute read
Drum Major at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1951.
Drum Major at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich., 1951. BUY NOWAlfred Eisenstaedt—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
By TIME Staff

After the first issue of LIFE was released almost exactly 80 years ago, in November of 1936, the magazine quickly established itself as the home of iconic photography. Founder Henry Luce had promised as much in the prospectus for the magazine:

To see life; to see the world; to eyewitness great events; to watch the faces of the poor and the gestures of the proud; to see strange things—machines, armies, multitudes, shadows in the jungle and on the moon; to see man’s work—his paintings, towers and discoveries; to see things thousands of miles away, things hidden behind walls and within rooms, things dangerous to come to; the women that men love and many children; to see and to take pleasure in seeing; to see and be amazed; to see and be instructed;

Thus to see, and to be shown, is now the will and new expectancy of half mankind.

To see, and to show, is the mission now undertaken by a new kind of publication…

Over the course of the following decades, LIFE photographers pursued that mission to all corners of the Earth, producing images that stand the test of time. Whether capturing the joy on the faces of children at a puppet show (as Alfred Eisenstaedt did in 1963) or a grand monument of iron (as Dmitri Kessel did in 1948), they saw the world in a special way, and allowed others to do the same.

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V-J Day, Times Square, New York, New York, 1945.
V-J Day, Times Square, New York, 1945. BUY NOWAlfred Eisenstaedt—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Watching Bwana Devil in 3-D at the Paramount Theater, 1952
Watching Bwana Devil in 3-D at the Paramount Theater, 1952. BUY NOWJ.R.Eyerman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty images
Children at the Tuileries puppet theatre, Paris, France, 1963.
Children at the Tuileries puppet theatre, Paris, France, 1963. BUY NOWAlfred Eisenstaedt—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Drum Major at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1951.
Drum Major at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich., 1951. BUY NOWAlfred Eisenstaedt—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Eiffel Tower, Paris, France, 1948.
Eiffel Tower, Paris, France, 1948. BUY NOWDmitri Kessel—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Mickey Mantle, New York, New York, 1965.
Mickey Mantle, New York, 1965. BUY NOWJohn Dominis—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Glendale Junior College Students dancing on Balboa Beach, California, 1947.
Glendale Junior College Students dancing on Balboa Beach, Calif., 1947. BUY NOWPeter Stackpole—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Summer beach fashions, 1950.
Summer beach fashions, 1950. BUY NOWNina Leen—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Trigger, a Chesapeake Bay retriever, plays a game with Donald, a pet duck, on a family ranch in Yakima, Washington, 1949.
Trigger, a Chesapeake Bay retriever, plays a game with Donald, a pet duck, on a family ranch in Yakima, Wash., 1949. BUY NOWLoomis Dean—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
John F. Kennedy and His Daughter Caroline, 1958.
John F. Kennedy and His Daughter Caroline, 1958. BUY NOWEd Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

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