655Kviews
20 Rarely Seen Photos Of America In The 1950’s Show How Different Life Was Before
The 1950’s are often viewed as a golden era in U.S. history, a time of happiness and prosperity, despite the threat of nuclear annihilation, racial segregation and the looming Cold War.
While most photos from the time are in black and white, color photography was still a relative novelty at the time and the film was quite expensive for regular people, the photos below are in glorious color. This means that they are more relatable, and makes the period feel closer to us than ever.
Many of the photos were collected by Denis Fraevich, a New Yorker of Russian descent who loves to bring the era back to life. “The pictures were found at auctions, flea markets and yards, digitized and posted on the Internet,” he told Bored Panda. “Someone's happy life, someone's dreams, important events, holidays and travel, for some reason were thrown into the garbage and became penny goods in a neighborhood sale. Seeing this is incredibly sad, but thanks to enthusiasts who buy and digitize old slides, we can raise the curtain of time and look at that era through the eyes of ordinary Americans.”
It is Denis' hobby to search for these photos, he is fascinated by all things Americana and loves history, abandoned places and as you can see in many of the photos, classic American cars. “I am amazed at how often a car is present in the frame,” he said. “They obviously occupied a much more important position in the life of an American than in our time. Today, it is much less likely that someone would take pictures of their car or television.” Denis works as a Russian-speaking tour guide in NYC and has a fascinating blog, which you can find here. (Translate it from Russian)
Scroll down to check out the pictures below, it might just inspire you to dig out that old leather jacket and the Brylcreem!
This post may include affiliate links.
Colored Entrance, Alabama, 1956
Ladylike In NYC, 1958
My Very Cool Grandpa In The 1950s Holding A Fish, Smoking A Cigarette, With A Book Tucked Into His Pants And Cigarette Pack In His Sleeve
A Drink, A Cigar And Not Giving A Good Goddamn, 1950s
My Grandma Had Such A Gorgeous Smile. 1950's
An Officer With Hot Foot Teddy, The Real-Life Inspiration For Smokey The Bear, 1950
He was saved by firefighters after a wildfire left him stranded in a tree. He was badly burned. He lived out his life (26 years) at the National Zoo in Washington DC as a symbol for the prevention of wildfires.
Load More Replies...
I was once corrected very seriously by a wildlife deputy.... he told me the actual name is Smokey Bear no "the" and he gave me a 20 minute lecture on how people have added the the but it's completely incorrect (according to this wildlife dude) just thought I'd share my useless knowledge in case anyone ended up in Jeopardy and needed this as an answer
Smokey Bear was born on Aug. 9, 1944, when the U.S. Forest Service and the Ad Council agreed that a fictional bear would be the symbol for their joint effort to promote forest fire prevention. Artist Albert Staehle painted the first poster of Smokey Bear pouring a bucket of water on a campfire, and saying “Care will prevent 9 out of 10 fires.” Which is debatable as statistics indicate most fires are started by lightning. Nevertheless, the Smokey slogan became the familiar “Only YOU Can Prevent Forest Fires!” Most Smokey art was produced by another Forest Service artist, Rudy Wendelin.
My dad took home two orphaned bear cubs and my brothers had to share their room with them. It was Alaska in the '60s.
"Hey you want to make a name for yourself one day just follow my lead".
It's NOT smokey the bear. Never was. It's SMOKEY BEAR. You should know better than to print drivel. https://smokeybear.com/en/smokeys-history/story-of-smokey
Straight from Wikipedia from a google search: "The living symbol of Smokey Bear was an American black bear three-month-old cub who in the spring of 1950 was caught in the Capitan Gap fire, a wildfire that burned 17,000 acres (69 km2) in the Lincoln National Forest,[16] in the Capitan Mountains of New Mexico."
Load More Replies...Daytona Beach,1957
James Dean At A California Gas Station With His Silver Porsche 550 Spyder, Named "Little Bastard," Just Hours Before His Fatal Crash. September 30, 1955
Store Front, Mobile, Alabama, 1956
Girl And Her Grandmother Window-Shopping In Mobile, Alabama, 1956
Anne St. Marie, New York City, 1959
Alabama, 1956
The Streets Of San Francisco. 1957
Girl Portrait. Shady Grove, Alabama, 1956
At The Party, 1956
Showgirls Playing Chess Backstage At The Latin Quarter Nightclub - New York, NY (1958)
Outside Looking In, Mobile, Alabama, 1956
This is the s**t we mustn't forget, especially in this day when people want to keep telling us we need to get back to some imaginary "good old days".
A Slightly Surrealistic Photo Of My Grandma And Some Dude Somewhere In Florida, 1957
South Side Snack. 1953, Chicago
Child In A Car Seat
My mom loved the 1950's in New York City. She got to see the original West Side Story on Broadway and had coffee with the beatniks in Greenwich Village who read poetry out loud to jazz. The city was clean and people looked forward to the future and anyone with a college degree had their pick of jobs. Women went shopping with their best clothes on which often included a mink coat or fox fur wrap. The ladies would have lunch at Schrafft's which also served alcohol. In the early 50's they didn't have to go grocery or errand shopping, all the markets (meat market, flower market, etc.) delivered everything to their maid Virginia through the back kitchen entrance. Were things not as good for minorities? No they were not. Mom was raised by an adored black maid named Virginia who was not permitted by the family to go to her wedding. She always felt bad about that and never understood why things were that way. Later, mom got arrested in the 1960's fighting for integration.
Ahhhh, the 1950"s. Where people looked the other way when they saw children be abused and domestic violence the norm because wives and children were considered "property"
Load More Replies...
A golden era for white males. I'm am VERY glad I don't have to have lived in it.
very ignorant comment. plenty of poor white families all across America at that time, and before. yes, segregation was outrageous, no doubt about it.
Load More Replies...
Honestly, these photos creep me out. For me, these pictures emphasize society's morbid need for perfection. Fake smiles. Brightly painted, but underdeveloped, technology. Ignorance and contributions to mass discrimination. I'd never want to live in the 1950's.
And you don't think our technology will seem undereveloped in the 2090's? I was a kid in the 50's and it was just fine. The smiles weren't fake -- people in these photos look like they actually did. Why do you think people have changed so much?
Load More Replies...
Golden era LOL! Except women and anyone other than a white male. The only decent thing to come out of the 50's was Brown V Board of Education of Topeka.
Beautiful and interesting pictures. I love the fashions of the time.
Awesome photos! It's really a trip back to the past!! One quick question though....are these photos colorized?
No, they're color photos. Typically slides. Color film had been common since the late 30's. More common in amateur photography since it was hard to process, expensive to make large prints, and very expensive to reproduce in print.
Load More Replies...
Give us more of such pictorial depiction of different cities across the world. Especially of the South and South East Asia, India, China, the Pacific Rim nations. Worth watching.
Very evocative. I was a kid back then (born 1954) and the clothes and cars bring back fond memories. It really was a good time. Not perfect, no time ever is, but it's an accurate depiction of how people lived at a time when working people were earning middle class incomes for the first time in history. No drug plague, homelessness, mass incarceration. I'm taken by how well everyone is dressed -- it brings back memories, I remember having a coat just like one of the kids -- that changed with the youth rebellion of the 60's and never went back. Otherwise, besides the look of the cars and clothes, it's interesting to look at the buildings and realize one would be very comfortable walking around in that world today, indeed, if you look at some of the streets, they might as well be in 2018 -- not just the old but the modernist architecture.
that's when we used to live in America.its been dead for along time.now we live in the rotting stinking empire,which is collapsing just as all empires do.
We (society in 2018) need more pictures like these from the history of ”black” America. As a ”white” person this is something really lacking in both my education and education in general. These images of that unfortunately separate history of America are affirming of the resilliance and warmth of their lives even though they represent a social injustice we can never repay.
My education had plenty of pictures and even movies about this topic and stop speaking for us white people. Its okay to be white.
Load More Replies...
hat's when we used to live in America.its been dead for along time.now we live in the rotting stinking empire,which is collapsing just as all empires do.
Everything was classy and beautiful and pastel. But then you see the segregation. OMG. I think a lot of White people in that time where so brainwashed they thought it was normal. But I hope many understood the madness of it all and wanted change, but couldn't do much about it.
The segregation was in the deep south. When I was growing up it horrified us as much as it horrifies people today. Southerners, of course, thought it was normal. And people *did* do something about it, it was already changing (e.g., Truman had integrated the armed forces and school segregation was ruled unconstitutional) and in a few years Martin Luther King would be marching. In 1965, LBJ signed the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, and the formal apparatus of Jim Crow was dismantled.
Load More Replies...
Make America Great Again people don't realize that back in the day America was only great if you were a white person, especially a white man. Or maybe they do realize that and they just don't care about anyone but themselves. That being said, there are some beautiful photos here.
I'm not sure what "people" you're addressing here. We all fully understand the horrible stuff back then.
Load More Replies...
The US led the world in standard of living back then. Most of all I remember it as a time of very little crime and more neighborly than today.
It was just hidden. Domestic violence and child abuse were rampant. Clergy were raping children. No one reported it. Don't scratch below that shiny surface - especially if you aren't a white Christian man.
Load More Replies...
My mom loved the 1950's in New York City. She got to see the original West Side Story on Broadway and had coffee with the beatniks in Greenwich Village who read poetry out loud to jazz. The city was clean and people looked forward to the future and anyone with a college degree had their pick of jobs. Women went shopping with their best clothes on which often included a mink coat or fox fur wrap. The ladies would have lunch at Schrafft's which also served alcohol. In the early 50's they didn't have to go grocery or errand shopping, all the markets (meat market, flower market, etc.) delivered everything to their maid Virginia through the back kitchen entrance. Were things not as good for minorities? No they were not. Mom was raised by an adored black maid named Virginia who was not permitted by the family to go to her wedding. She always felt bad about that and never understood why things were that way. Later, mom got arrested in the 1960's fighting for integration.
Ahhhh, the 1950"s. Where people looked the other way when they saw children be abused and domestic violence the norm because wives and children were considered "property"
Load More Replies... A golden era for white males. I'm am VERY glad I don't have to have lived in it.
very ignorant comment. plenty of poor white families all across America at that time, and before. yes, segregation was outrageous, no doubt about it.
Load More Replies... Honestly, these photos creep me out. For me, these pictures emphasize society's morbid need for perfection. Fake smiles. Brightly painted, but underdeveloped, technology. Ignorance and contributions to mass discrimination. I'd never want to live in the 1950's.
And you don't think our technology will seem undereveloped in the 2090's? I was a kid in the 50's and it was just fine. The smiles weren't fake -- people in these photos look like they actually did. Why do you think people have changed so much?
Load More Replies... Golden era LOL! Except women and anyone other than a white male. The only decent thing to come out of the 50's was Brown V Board of Education of Topeka.
Beautiful and interesting pictures. I love the fashions of the time.
Awesome photos! It's really a trip back to the past!! One quick question though....are these photos colorized?
No, they're color photos. Typically slides. Color film had been common since the late 30's. More common in amateur photography since it was hard to process, expensive to make large prints, and very expensive to reproduce in print.
Load More Replies... Give us more of such pictorial depiction of different cities across the world. Especially of the South and South East Asia, India, China, the Pacific Rim nations. Worth watching.
Very evocative. I was a kid back then (born 1954) and the clothes and cars bring back fond memories. It really was a good time. Not perfect, no time ever is, but it's an accurate depiction of how people lived at a time when working people were earning middle class incomes for the first time in history. No drug plague, homelessness, mass incarceration. I'm taken by how well everyone is dressed -- it brings back memories, I remember having a coat just like one of the kids -- that changed with the youth rebellion of the 60's and never went back. Otherwise, besides the look of the cars and clothes, it's interesting to look at the buildings and realize one would be very comfortable walking around in that world today, indeed, if you look at some of the streets, they might as well be in 2018 -- not just the old but the modernist architecture.
that's when we used to live in America.its been dead for along time.now we live in the rotting stinking empire,which is collapsing just as all empires do.
We (society in 2018) need more pictures like these from the history of ”black” America. As a ”white” person this is something really lacking in both my education and education in general. These images of that unfortunately separate history of America are affirming of the resilliance and warmth of their lives even though they represent a social injustice we can never repay.
My education had plenty of pictures and even movies about this topic and stop speaking for us white people. Its okay to be white.
Load More Replies... hat's when we used to live in America.its been dead for along time.now we live in the rotting stinking empire,which is collapsing just as all empires do.
Everything was classy and beautiful and pastel. But then you see the segregation. OMG. I think a lot of White people in that time where so brainwashed they thought it was normal. But I hope many understood the madness of it all and wanted change, but couldn't do much about it.
The segregation was in the deep south. When I was growing up it horrified us as much as it horrifies people today. Southerners, of course, thought it was normal. And people *did* do something about it, it was already changing (e.g., Truman had integrated the armed forces and school segregation was ruled unconstitutional) and in a few years Martin Luther King would be marching. In 1965, LBJ signed the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, and the formal apparatus of Jim Crow was dismantled.
Load More Replies... Make America Great Again people don't realize that back in the day America was only great if you were a white person, especially a white man. Or maybe they do realize that and they just don't care about anyone but themselves. That being said, there are some beautiful photos here.
I'm not sure what "people" you're addressing here. We all fully understand the horrible stuff back then.
Load More Replies... The US led the world in standard of living back then. Most of all I remember it as a time of very little crime and more neighborly than today.
It was just hidden. Domestic violence and child abuse were rampant. Clergy were raping children. No one reported it. Don't scratch below that shiny surface - especially if you aren't a white Christian man.
Load More Replies...