"The Pin-Up: A Modest History"
by Mark Gabor
Evergreen Books, 1996
(original printing 1972)
     Years ago, the era of classic pin-up girl was looked upon as something less than rosy. The warm glow of nostalgia that we feel for those glamour gals nowadays was not always the case. When "The Pin-Up: A Modest History" was written in the early 1970's, pin-up girls were looked on with a large amount of feminist disdain. Cheesecake was seen as symptom of the corrupted and over-sexed male psyche. Pin-up girls, according to the vibe of the book, are just victims of a suffocating patriarchy. To let you in on how old-school feminist this book is, just take a quick glance of the forward--an essay called "The Packaging of Rape: A Feminist Indictment." Despite the sometimes radical feminist axe-grinding, this book does do a good job of tracing the history of the pin-up from the turn of the 20th century Gibson Girl, to the Vargas paintings of the 30's and 40's, to the classic era of the men's magazine, to 70's porn sheik. One of the most fascinating parts of the book is when they trace cheesecake photography traditions (like women posed in bathtubs or in front of mirrors) and how those traditions evolved (and showed more) as the years went by. "The Pin-Up: A Modest History" will no doubt set off some fans of the current retro pin-up craze, but it’s a necessary read to get a fuller understanding on how society has treated cheesecake through the years.

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