People Are Sharing Pics Of Life 50-100 Years Ago And They Might Put Things In A New Perspective (New Pics)
How would you describe normal, everyday life? Well, for a modern person, it’s anything from brushing their teeth to… commuting to work. Oh wait, not anymore. Coronavirus has shaken up quite a few things, and made us work from home, stay in more, keep distances and whatnot. The change is dramatic and it’s only been like two years (almost three!, o-m-g) since it first started in late 2019.
So yep, time is flying like a hadron collider, changing things beyond recognition on the way. But today would look nothing like a day 20, 50, or even 100 years ago. And we mean it. Thanks to the miscellaneous corner of Reddit “The Way We Were,” which is home to a stunning collection of old photos, scanned documents, articles, and personal anecdotes, we can all secure our seat belts and travel to the past.
The community was created back in 2012, and will celebrate its ten-year anniversary in less than a month. As of today, it had 549k time travelers, I mean devoted members who, just like us, share a fascination with things that have gone with time. Upvote your favorite pics and be sure to check out part 1 of the post right here.
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Young Woman Dressed For An Evening Out, Detroit, 1968
My Kitty ... Harlem, NY, 1949
"Sits Down Spotted"- Crow Nation, Fort Keogh, Montana, 1881. Photo By L.A. Huffman
What a beautiful, characteristic face :O (that probably sounds weird but I feel this person's charm through the screen and I mean that in a non-creepy way :') )
To find out more about the cultural and societal significance of old photos, as well as the meanings behind them, we reached out to Lisa Yaszek, a Regents Professor of Science Fiction Studies at Georgia Tech where she researches and teaches science fiction as a global language crossing centuries, continents, and cultures.
Lisa explained that old photos affect our perception of time in unique ways. They do that “by making abstract historical events visually concrete, giving us an emotional connection to eras we might not otherwise know very much about, exactly, through books or family stories. For instance, when I was looking over the photos for this article I was really taken by images of Japanese-Americans in WWII U.S. internment camps, young people protesting low wages for teachers in the Great Depression, female engineers working for the Space Race, and little kids protesting Daylight Savings Time—my own son especially appreciated that one…”
My Dad Died This Week, And I Was Going Through Photos For The Memorial Slideshow. Here Are My Parents In A Very Early 70's Kitchen, But Mostly I Really Like How They Are Looking At Each Other
A Young Woman Posing For A Studio Portrait, Kentucky, Circa 1890-1910
My Grandfather And His Horse, Ruby. 1940’s
The professor at Georgia Tech added that all the subjects of these photos look so alive and have such a range of emotions on their faces—“from determination to silliness to fear to hope. It reminds us that historical events don’t just happen on their own—they involve real people taking real action, for better or for worse.”
She continued that old photos also remind us that people in the past led rich and complex lives, just as we do today. “For instance, we tend to assume that in the past, women were limited to work as wives and mothers, and we certainly see a number of images here celebrating women’s work in the home. But we also see women doing all sorts of work in the public sphere as well—everything from attending school graduations and working on supercomputers to taking back the streets of postwar London and bouncing drunks out of bars!”
"Cairo Mary," Bouncer At Shanghai Reds (5th And Beacon In San Pedro, Ca) Escorts A Customer To The Door. 1953
This Is My Great Aunt In Front Of Their House In Boston, 1964. The House Was Bought On A Milkman's Salary
My Grandma And Uncle In Iran, April 1971
Lisa also enjoyed the photos of everyday people aiming to look their very best from all over the world. “Whether they are wearing traditional ethnic finery to celebrate a special event or all dressed up in contemporary fashion for a night on the town,” she added. According to the professor, “It’s touching to realize that no matter how different we seem to be from each other in terms of race or class or nationality, we all want to leave a good impression for posterity!”
“And that is what old photos do best: they remind us that people in the past have had many of the same challenges and triumphs as we have, and that we can look to them for inspiration regarding how to make sense of the present and build new futures,” she concluded.
Children In A Traditional Minobashi Raincoat Going To A New Year's Event, Niigata Prefecture, Japan, 1956
An Elderly Woman Reading A Book With A Cat On Her Lap, 1944
Adelaide Springett, Who Was So Ashamed At The State Of Her Boots She Took Them Off, Stand For A Photograph In London, 1901. Photo By Horace Warner
When asked whether we tend to idolize the past and vilify the present, Lisa said that it’s true and that old photos can indeed play a part in that process. She explained: “Even as some photos help us put a personal face on big historical events, others give us very unrealistic understandings of what everyday life was really like in the past. Before the advent of digital cameras that could take and store hundreds of photos without costing users very much in terms of effort or money, photos were more expensive and difficult to create—in the 1800s, subjects had to stand still and pose to create good images; throughout the early and middle 20th century, good cameras were often complicated to master; and even when instant cameras made it easier for people to take decent photos at the drop of a hat in the 1970s, users had to have the money to purchase expensive film cartridges!”
Three Young Ladies Posing With A Friend. Circa 1930
My Great Grandmother In Her 50s Probably Taken Around The 70s Or 80s
Four Generations, Circa 1905, Location Unknown
“So, it’s no surprise that photos were often taken to document special occasions like weddings, births, and funerals rather than the minutiae of everyday life,” the Regents Professor said and added that “it’s also no surprise that since photography was associated with special events, people worked hard to present themselves in the best light possible, regardless of their real situations.”
“So ultimately, the record we have of the past tends to focus on significant milestones rather than everyday life. Oddly enough, this is exactly what we say about social media these days! So maybe the more things change, the more they really do stay the same,” Lisa wondered.
My Mother Rose, June 16, 1959
My Grandfather And Friends In The Amache Internment Camp In Colorado, Circa 1942. He Was About 15 When This Photo Was Taken; He Passed Away Last Month At 94
Most of the Japanese imprisoned here were also US citizens, and this was one of about ten prison camps for the Japanese.
A Young Man Demonstrating Against Low Pay For Teachers, Ca. 1930. “I Left School To Earn $21 A Week. My Teacher’s Pay Is $17.78 A Week.” Photo: Paul Thompson
Isaac And Rosa, Emancipated Slave Children From New Orleans, 1863
Notice how they're both (former) slaves and how they look different each. It's tragic what these children went through, but it's an important document of the past as well. Never again.
The girl is probably Irish or Italian descent. A part of history that gets glossed over.
Load More Replies...For those arguing but not bothering to read the article… According to an article published in Harper’s Weekly on January 30, 1864, the biography of Isaac and Rosa is summarized as: Isaac White is a black boy of eight years, but nonetheless intelligent than his whiter companions. He has been in school about seven months, and I venture to say that not one boy in fifty would have made as much improvement in that space of time. Rosina Downs is not quite seven years old. She is a fair child, with a blonde complexion and silky hair. Her father is in the rebel army. She has one sister as white as herself and three brothers who are darker. Her mother, a bright mulatto, lives in New Orleans in a poor hut and has hard work to support her family. https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/story-of-isaac-and-rosa-emancipated-slave-children
More about them here: https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/story-of-isaac-and-rosa-emancipated-slave-children/
First thing, that hit me: sad expression, poor children, who lost their childhood and probably the rest of their lives to slavery, too.
Load More Replies...Let us remember the past so as to avoid it repeating in the future.
Reality check: There are more slaves in the world today than at any point in recorded history.
There are also more people in the world today than at any point in recorded history. Going with the first google result, there are 40 million slaves today. The population is 7.75 billion. If my math is correct, that's approximately one half of one percent of the global population. Looking at the U.S. population when this photo was taken, there were 4 million slaves in the 1860 census. The total U.S. population was 31 million. That means roughly 13% of the U.S. population was enslaved. Yup, there are more people enduring slavery now than there were in 1860, but that doesn't in any way, shape, or form compare to the magnitude of slavery this country has endured in our past.
Load More Replies...This photo and many like it were used during and after the Civil War to help the abolitionist cause and to raise money for former slaves by getting the white people to take notice. Rosa was 10 years old at the time of the photo. Her father was white and in the rebel army. Her mother was mulatto and lived in New Orleans. Isaac was 8 years old. No, children of Irish people were not enslaved or born into slavery. If you were black your children and their children were the property of the master. This was not the case of the Irish or any other people except black people. It's a disgusting attempt to rewrite history to make it seem that black people didn't have it any harder than white people. And I'm 100% Irish. If only people knew their history.
The irony here is that the girl is probably the offspring of the slaveowner and one of his slaves...yet both are slaves because he could not have her in his house even if he wanted to, which he ertainly would not, his wife would not allow it
Evil. All the words in the word can not make a good reason for any human being a slave.
America had caucasian slaves?!? Literally the first time I've ever heard that, and I'm 42!
Nope. The U.S. had the one drop law. It was a ridiculously racist rule that people who had ANY Black ancestors were considered Black. This girl's mother was mixed race, so she's considered Black. More about her here: https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/spotlight-primary-source/enslaved-children-new-orleans-1863
Load More Replies...An historical photo of sad little children. The little girl obviously has more white blood than her friend. Terrible practice the way they were treated usually.
Hasn't arrived yet, anywhere. Especially in the US.
Load More Replies...Notice how both shoes on the children have square toes. This way the shoes would fit either the right foot AND/OR the left foot. It was only recently since 1900 that they made shoes designated for the right or left foot.
Notice the shoes have square toes. This way there are no right or left shoes...but one shoe fits both left or right foot....they only redid the left/right shoe thing recently since 1900....
Those children look shellshocked and in their eyes, old beyond their years. It will take generations for this pain to heal.
She's evidence of the U.S.'s "one drop" law. She's mixed race and wasn't considered white.
Load More Replies...There are more human beings in slavery today than at any other time in history.
There are also more people in the world today than at any point in recorded history. Going with the first google result, there are 40 million people enslaved today. That's awful. Nothing excuses that. The total global population is 7.75 billion. If my math is correct, that means approximately one half of one percent of the global population is currently enslaved. Looking at the U.S. population when this photo was taken, there were 4 million slaves in the 1860 census. The total U.S. population was 31 million. That means roughly 13% of the U.S. population was enslaved. Yup, there are more people enduring slavery now than there were in 1860 and that's a bad thing, but that doesn't in any way, shape, or form lessen to the of magnitude of the slavery that built the U.S.
Load More Replies...IRISH AND OTHER WHITES WERE SLAVES TOO. MODERN DAY HISTORY NEGLECTS TO STATE THE REAL FACTS.
Indentured servitude is widely documented, and well known. It is not anything like actual slavery. Nobody neglects that history, and only people trying to stir sh*t and undermine the very real, horrors of slavery bring it up. I hope you're just spouting without thinking, and that you'll rethink why you feel it is so important to try to undermine the very real, very disgusting institution of slavery, past and present.
Load More Replies...1930 - My Second Great Aunt Sara (Right) And Her Mother Manuela (Sitting) And Aunt Emilia. Caja Espíritu, Huancavelica, Perú. The Only Photo That Exists Of Mama Manuela.
Butterfly Boy, New York City, 1949
(1964) Engineer Karen Leadlay Working On The Analog Computers In The Space Division Of General Dynamics
I saw this pic before I put my glasses on and thought "who needs that much spaghetti"
A Man With His Cat, Early 1900s
A Casual Portrait Of A Woman Smiling, 1880
I Went My Whole Life Not Seeing Photos Of My Mexican Family, Until Today. Hope You Enjoy These Photos Of My Family In Nayarit, Mexico, In The Early 1900s As Much As I Do!
Young Dutch Mother With Her Baby In A Wooden Pram. Netherlands, 1929
Creole Woman C. 1860
I WOULD SAY LOOKS DEMURE. SHY. BEAUTIFUL TOO. WOULD LOVE TO KNOW HER STORY.
Two Women At A Bar, New York C. 1945. Photo By Weegee
Little Girl Roaring At A Stuffed Grizzly Bear At The Sportsman's Show In The Chicago Coliseum. Chicago, Illinois, 1967
This Kid Is A Water Heater For Halloween, Circa 1979
Teddy Girls In 1955 - Their Subculture Centred Around A Still-Bomb-Damaged London
"World’s Largest Log Cabin". Portland, Oregon, USA, 1938. Built In 1905, Burned Down In 1964
Teenage Sisters Gertrude And Ursula Falke. Germany, 1906
My Parents In The Mid 1940s. I’ve Always Loved This Picture
My Aunt Estie, Who Passed Away Today, High School Graduation, The Bronx 1945
Rescuing A Horse That Fell In The Canal. Amsterdam, 1929
Glorious Kodachrome Shot Of A Lady All Dressed Up On Her Car. Guessing It To Be 1950s?
Kids Protesting The Dst. New York, 1939
Me Circa 1965 In A Suit And Bow Tie Made By My Mom. She Made All Our Clothes Back Then
Portrait Of A Young Woman From Denmark. Photographed In 1895
The Fate And Feet Of Three Chinese Girls - A Bare Footed Slave, A Girl With Bound Feet, And A Christian With Unbound Feet - Ca. Early 1900s
Not entirely accurate in the description. The girl in the centre is a noblewoman, the two unbound feet girls are her maidservants - the one on the right being a friend and personal maid, the one on the left a cleaner for the girl's room. Their parents would be servants of the household too. The girl in the middle is likely in agony and won't be able to walk well, horrific stuff. Thing is too, when this photo was taken, foot binding was ILLEGAL. It was declared illegal six times throughout the Qing Dynasty, beginning right at the start of the Dynasty, but was unenforceable due to lack of manpower. The rulers of the Dynasty found it horrifying too, but couldn't stop it.
Mother And Son. Lisdoonvarna, Ireland C. 1890
'i Love You So Much!' Boy And Dog Circa Mid 1950s
A Photo Of Central Park In NYC During The Great Depression (1933)
Rural American Life In The First Half Of The 20th Century, By Mike Disfarmer, Whose Life Was A Mystery, And Whose Work Was Only Discovered Posthumously
In Paris, 1966. Photographer: Jack Garofalo
Me Circa 1968-1969. Those Sideburns Though
Jaws Inspects The Halloween Loot, 1976
My Sister And I With A Friend's Pet Dik-Dik, 1968
Oh, I love those little critters! The dik-diks I mean. Although I'm sure the children are lovely, too.
My Jute Weaver Great-Grandmother And Children (Including My Granny Standing At The Back). Dundee, Scotland 1915
Note: this post originally had 125 images. It’s been shortened to the top 50 images based on user votes.
My Aunt Angela with my dad's dog Pungie. She held down the fort at the family lock shop in South Boston while her brothers were all off to WW2. The Boston Globe did a story on her of how feminine she was working as a locksmith. The business is still there, run by my siblings. Aunt-Angie...47032a.jpg
Angie looks like a cool chick, all 5'2" of her. Note the In the Service board. My dad and two of his brothers all in the armed forces.
Load More Replies...My grandparents stopping to gather fall leaves on Steven's pass, mid-60s. PICT0279-6...239414.jpg
So many of these are just plain awesome photographs. Astounding quality.
My great grandfather (right) just outside of Winnipeg, Manitoba pepers-2-6...67f48c.jpg
Four Generations of my family 1956- My dad is the baby, held by his great grandma, his grandma and father are standing Mabel-Col-...94bcf6.jpg
I just love old photos like this, thank you! The oldest one I have is one of my Grandmother, Eva, from 1917. She used it as a postcard and sent it to her father. Alas, that's all I know, but isn't she lovely? 1917-Eva-H...2266fa.jpg
"The change is dramatic and it's only been like two years! (Almost three!)" So it's late 2022?
Now I feel very ancient, as I have photos that look like almost all of these in albums, from my great great grandfather and his child wife, his son in the Civil War, all the way to me. Photos from the 50s-90s don't feel 'historic" to me, they just feel like life. I'm not sure why they titled this 50-100 years ago, when many are significantly older.
Beautiful Topic! I´d like to have a google earth for old Pics from the very past to reunite people and give people the chance to see the environment in former times ...
There is something magical about old photos. They capture the moments that are long gone.
17$ a week for being a teacher? oh come on........ they're worth at least 18 if they don't teach business practices 8yrs out of date that are no use to anyone.
should maybe have put the /s at the end...... but surely they'd get the sarcasm before angrily typing back.
Load More Replies...I'm just so glad I didn't live in an earlier time. The 'good ol days' may make for great pictures, but would have sucked to live in.
Or ugly people didn’t pay to get their portraits done?
Load More Replies...My Aunt Angela with my dad's dog Pungie. She held down the fort at the family lock shop in South Boston while her brothers were all off to WW2. The Boston Globe did a story on her of how feminine she was working as a locksmith. The business is still there, run by my siblings. Aunt-Angie...47032a.jpg
Angie looks like a cool chick, all 5'2" of her. Note the In the Service board. My dad and two of his brothers all in the armed forces.
Load More Replies...My grandparents stopping to gather fall leaves on Steven's pass, mid-60s. PICT0279-6...239414.jpg
So many of these are just plain awesome photographs. Astounding quality.
My great grandfather (right) just outside of Winnipeg, Manitoba pepers-2-6...67f48c.jpg
Four Generations of my family 1956- My dad is the baby, held by his great grandma, his grandma and father are standing Mabel-Col-...94bcf6.jpg
I just love old photos like this, thank you! The oldest one I have is one of my Grandmother, Eva, from 1917. She used it as a postcard and sent it to her father. Alas, that's all I know, but isn't she lovely? 1917-Eva-H...2266fa.jpg
"The change is dramatic and it's only been like two years! (Almost three!)" So it's late 2022?
Now I feel very ancient, as I have photos that look like almost all of these in albums, from my great great grandfather and his child wife, his son in the Civil War, all the way to me. Photos from the 50s-90s don't feel 'historic" to me, they just feel like life. I'm not sure why they titled this 50-100 years ago, when many are significantly older.
Beautiful Topic! I´d like to have a google earth for old Pics from the very past to reunite people and give people the chance to see the environment in former times ...
There is something magical about old photos. They capture the moments that are long gone.
17$ a week for being a teacher? oh come on........ they're worth at least 18 if they don't teach business practices 8yrs out of date that are no use to anyone.
should maybe have put the /s at the end...... but surely they'd get the sarcasm before angrily typing back.
Load More Replies...I'm just so glad I didn't live in an earlier time. The 'good ol days' may make for great pictures, but would have sucked to live in.
Or ugly people didn’t pay to get their portraits done?
Load More Replies...