but i do remember the hairstyles

I wasn't around for the Fifties, and wasn't all that intellectually cognizant for most of the Sixties. Which means that among other things I didn't read the papers. So when James Lileks takes a section of his lavishly illustrated all-things-ginchily-retro site to tell me how hokey dog photos used to serve as newspaper filler, I believe him.

"As you will see, newspaper dog photography was for years the last resort of the hack and the flack, the assignment no one wanted, the crap job handed out to the guys who could barely be trusted to take off the lens cap. Put yourself in a photog’s shoes. Imagine how you’d feel when the President’s in town; you’re handed the assignment slip and see the words: Terrier had 11 puppies. Get pictures."

That's what Lileks writes. And this is what he found.