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Oftentimes, we think of people from the past as stuffy, stiff, and nowhere near as fun as us. After all, at best, we might have a few old letters and maybe some dusty photographs. But don’t let this fool you, humans over a hundred years ago were just as capable of looking fly.
New York Times bestselling author Jason Pargin shared his discovery that people in mugshots from over a hundred years ago look absolutely awesome. Bored Panda reached out to Jason via email and will update the article when he gets back to us.
More info: TikTok
A man on TikTok shared his discovery that folks in 1920s mugshots looked incredibly cool
@jasonkpargin #rizz ♬ Quirky Suspenseful Indie-Comedy(1115050) - Kenji Ueda
We’ve gathered some of the best examples online below
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#1
Herbert Ellis 1920
Ellis is found in numerous police records of the 1910s, 20s and 30s. He is variously listed as a housebreaker, a shop breaker, a safe breaker, a receiver and a suspected person
Danny Dale 1 year ago
A ‘discovery’ that is literally from a museum in Sydney and published books (“Crooks Like Us”)
Rubyjune 1 year ago
It doesn't say they discovered them? It just says look at them.
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Jo Hardy 1 year ago
Re. my original comment here (above): I realised that I have purely commented on this guy's good looks. I also noticed that other people had commented in this way on other photos. This seems to be exactly the same reaction as to the 'sexy felon' whose mugshot was plastered all over the Internet. What does this say about us? I think we see good looking people and forget about what they've done. The 'sexy felon' (wtw?!) divorced his wife and married multi millionaire Sir Peter Green's daughter. Be super attractive, commit crime, live it up.
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Tiny Dancer 1 year ago
Housebreaker, shop breaker, safebreaker. And heartbreaker, am I right, ladies? I'll bet those peepers were blue.
Duuuuuuude 1 year ago
I love how well dressed most of them are. 1920s criminals were classier than 2020s average joes.
PFD 1 year ago
From the list above, personhood is enough. They don't even have to prove it.
Load More Replies... RELATED:
#2
Eugenia Falleni, Alias Harry Crawford. 1920
Eugenia Falleni spent most of her life masquerading as a man. In 1913 Falleni married a widow, Annie Birkett, whom she later murdered
Vinay Pai 1 year ago
Am I the only one here who thinks she looks like Ellen DeGeneres in her previous birth?
Crazy Panda 1 year ago
At first I was like "rock on historical queers! " and then I was like "oh nvm"
BTDubs 1 year ago
I think we should embrace all of queer history, the good and the bad.
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#3
William Stanley Moore 1926
Opium dealer./ Operates with large quantities of faked opium and cocaine./ A wharf labourer; associates with water front thieves and drug traders
Panda Boi 1 year ago
Safe bet to assume Ralph Fiennes will be playing the lead if there ever was a movie about this guy.
El Dee 1 year ago
Regardless of his crimes the pic on the right oozes coolness and confidence..
Slim 864 GVG 1 year ago
As a former addict, buy d***s is bad enough, but buying fake d***s is the worst and you are the lowest of the low to sell fake stuff.
The term mugshot is somewhat comical, as the word “mug” is a pretty lowly slang word for a face. How it ended up being part of the official label is anyone’s guess. Regardless of the “how,” the term mugshot has been used since the late 18th century, although, as these images demonstrate, the form and standards have changed over time.
The real question is, why were all these convicts of the past so darn attractive? Is there some correlation between doing crime and physical charisma? Unfortunately, for better or worse, that seems statistically unlikely. Instead, these images simply stood out from the no doubt hundreds of others.
#4
Nancy Cowman, 21 February 1924
Nancy Cowman, 19, and Vera Crichton, 23, are listed in the NSW Police Gazette 24 March 1924 as charged, along with three others, with “conspiring together to procure a miscarriage” on a third woman
Patricia Smith 1 year ago
If conservatives have their way, America will have back ally abortions again for everyday Americans but "DNC's" for wealthy women.
#5
Edith Florence Ashton, 29 August 1929
Edith Ashton was a backyard abortionist who also dabbled in theft and fencing stolen goods
El Dee 1 year ago
Thank God it has been legalised to prevent amateur abortions killing young girls. Some places in the US are going to see this return..
Isa's left eye 1 year ago
Also known as the pigeon lady from Home Alone 2 pigeonlady...bd06b.jpeg 
Chew-Bonkers 1 year ago
Women's right to choose should not be left in the hands of so called "Men".
Guess Undheit 1 year ago
In 1927, Edith Ashton was acquited of causing Isobel Johnson's death. Legal abortion and proper medical care for women would have prevented this. [ https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/236625667 ]
Guess Undheit 1 year ago
History lesson: In those days, single pregnant women or teen girls were often put into what was effectively a prison, treated as criminals, forced to do physical labour for no pay. The babies they were forced to carry to term were taken away and put up for adoption, the women never seeing their child ever again (sometimes immediately taken away minutes after birth). That was considered "normal".
#6
Guiseppe Fiori, Alias Permontto. 1924
Katherine Hyde 1 year ago
Belt AND suspenders. Those trousers aren't coming down on accident fellas.
Kathy Smith 1 year ago
Interesting how most of the men look very smug, and the women look ashamed. I wonder if it’s because they were treated differently by the police?
The fact that they were allowed to pose and even retain their own clothes does mean that this was a sort of “golden age” of mugshots. There is something appealing about the modern iteration, of just a face and side profile, but, as these images demonstrate, certain looks are just no longer possible.
#7
Hazel Mcguinness, 26 July 1929
Hazel McGuinness was charged along with her mother Ada McGuiness with having cocaine (in substantial quantities) illegally in her possession. Police described a raid on the McGuinnesses’ Darlinghurst house during which the mother Ada threw a hand bag containing packets of cocaine to her daughter, shouting, ‘Run Hazel!’
Jakoe 1 year ago
This made me laugh way harder than was probably necessary
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Brent Amador 1 year ago
I thought coc was still technically legal in the 20’s? Since it was used in cola.
#8
‘Ah Num’ And ‘Ah Tom’, Ca 1930
The ‘D’ prefix on the serial number indicates that the photograph was taken on behalf of the Drug Bureau
TheNewJenBrady 1 year ago
The guy on the right has amazing bone structure. Those cheekbones wow
#9
“Mrs Osbourne” Circa 1919
Ky Ky Jiannine 1 year ago
https://flashbak.com/villains-in-furs-incredible-mugshots-of-female-prisoners-in-the-early-20th-century-432592/
Load More Replies...So all in all, take this as an opportunity to explore the criminals and fashion of the past. While it might be a bit strange to take fashion advice from a hundred-year-old image of a convict, one can’t deny that many of them do look downright cool. If you overlook the criminal-elephant in the room.
#10
De Gracy And Edward Dalton, 1920
Fern 1 year ago
I feel like Mr Waits would heartily approve of this comment
Load More Replies... Ozymandias73 1 year ago
DeGracy looks like the weaselly, little yes man that you don't want to mess around with.
#11
Sydney Skukerman, Or Skukarman. 1924
Obtains goods from warehousemen by falsely representing that he is in business.
Joe Reaves 1 year ago
Probably doesn't give his real name while obtaining goods by deception or maybe he does and that's how he got caught.
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#12
Emma Rolfe (Aka May Mulholland, Sybil White, Jean Harris And Eileen Mulholland), 1 April 1920
Emma Rolfe better known as May Mulholland (also as Sybil White, Jean Harris and Eileen Mulholland) had numerous convictions in the period 1919-1920 for theft of jewellery and clothing (all quality items: silk blouses, kimonos and scarves, antique bric a brac etc) from various houses around Kensington and Randwick, and from city shops
Thomas Grant 1 year ago
Hotel barber was a term used for someone who would check into a hotel to rob the people staying there.
Load More Replies... #13
William Cahill 1923
#14
Hampton Hirscham, Cornellius Joseph Keevil, William Thomas O’brien & James O’brien. 1921
The quartet pictured were arrested over a robbery at the home of bookmaker Reginald Catton, of Todman avenue, Kensington, on 21 April 1921. The Crown did not proceed against Thomas O’Brien but the other three were convicted and received sentences of fifteen months each
Tucker Cahooter 1 year ago
Look more like a barbershop quartet. Expecting them to break into song and wave those hats around
#15
Group Of Criminals, Central 1921
Ophelia Vandergurgleduffen 1 year ago
“My boys ain’t done nuffin’. They’s good boys and look afta their mam.”
Samantha Angell 1 year ago
It took me what too long to find the woman in the middle's second leg 😅
Javelina Poppers 1 year ago (edited)
My 3rd grade class photo with Sister Mary Roberts (alias Bad Bob)
#16
Doris Winifred Poole, 31 July 1924
Doris Poole appeared before the Newtown Police Court charged with stealing jewellery and clothing
Mabelbabel 1 year ago
If she stole those shoes, she had very good taste-they're really pretty.
#17
Philomena Mary Best, 15 March 1927
Philomena Best stole silk and other goods valued at over 36 pounds (about $2000 today) from a Bourke shopkeeper
Betty Vanderhooven-SchmaaSchmaa 1 year ago
Looking forward to a time when names like hers come back into style.
#18
Elsie Hall, Dulcie Morgan, Jean Taylor C. 1920
The names inscribed here do not appear in police records for 1920-21, and it is likely the women were photographed simply because they were found in the company of known criminals
#19
Dorothy Mort, 18 April 1921
Convicted of murder. Mrs Dorothy Mort was having an affair with dashing young doctor Claude Tozer. On 21 December 1920 Tozer visited her home with the intention of breaking off the relationship. Mort shot him dead before attempting to commit suicide
GrowingThruConcrete 1 year ago (edited)
Its leaving out that she was one of his mental patients and was found not guilty by insanity
Annabelle 1 year ago
That is sad actually. Nothing dashing about a doctor who hits on a patient.
Load More Replies... El Dee 1 year ago
Her story is on the internet. She wasn't executed but I don't know what her sentence was..
Peter Gwynn 1 year ago
insanity, put away for eight years then relapsed to her husband died aged 81 in 1966
Load More Replies... Steve Hall 1 year ago
Just looking in a mirror should have told her that the doctor was only interested in her body.
#20
Fay Watson, 24 March 1928
#21
‘Hayes’, Early 1920s
Craig Parker 8 months ago
The notorious criminal Edmond (Chow) Hayes ... brothel owner ,armed robber and m******r
#22
Albert Sing, 31 March 1922
On 1 May 1922, a month after this photograph was taken, Albert Sing was sentenced to 18 months hard labour on three counts of receiving stolen goods, including fountain pens, cutlery and clothing
#23
May Smith, 8 April 1929
May Smith, alias ‘Botany May’, was an infamous drug dealer
Mike F 1 year ago
I think the inference is that she was an avid gardener, lol.
Load More Replies... Tiny Dancer 1 year ago
Botany Bay is well known as the first penal colony in Australia. The place where The First Fleet of over 700 convicts landed in 1787. This gal's nickname of Botany May could just refer to where she did her d**g dealing or where she's from.
#24
Frederick Edward Davies. 1921
The handwritten inscription on this unnumbered Special Photograph reads ‘Frederick Edward Davies stealing in picture shows and theatres Dets Surridge Clark and Breen Central 14-7-21’
A P 1 year ago
I can't believe I didn't even notice that until I read this. I must have scrolled too fast :)
Load More Replies... Lotekguy 1 year ago
He was actually a pimp. Behind him are the Johns waiting for his ladies to finish with their current customers.
#25
Thomas Sutherland Jones And William Smith, 15 July 1921
Smith and Jones are listed in the NSW Police Gazette as charged with stealing seven packages of twine (value 14 pounds). Jones was further charged with stealing thirty horse rugs (value 15 pounds) and two bales of kapok (value 20 pounds)
PandaJon 1 year ago
Their grandkids, Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith later went on to star in MEN IN BLACK
Chewie Baron 1 year ago
No, their grandsons were Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones who made sweet sweet comedy together.
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#26
Gilbert Burleigh And Joseph Delaney. 1920
Gilbert Burleigh on the left is identified as a ‘hotel barber’, and Delaney‘s picture is labelled ‘false pretences & conspiracy’
vintage_one 1 year ago
I thought the same thing. Almost every man is wearing a 3 piece suit.
Load More Replies... PFD 1 year ago
Someone who frequented hotels, boarding houses etc and went through the clothes of other boarders while they were out.
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#27
Sidney “Pretty Sid” Grant. 1921
#28
Harris Hunter, 17 September 1924
#29
Thomas Craig, Raymond Neil (Aka “Gaffney The Gunman”), William Thompson And Fw Wilson. 1928
Tucker Cahooter 1 year ago
Looks like the sort of guys to conduct a St Valentine's Day massacre
#30
“Silent Tom” Richards And T Ross. 1920
#31
Walter Smith. 1924
Charged with breaking and entering the dwelling-house of Edward Mulligan and stealing blinds with a value 20 pounds
Barong 1 year ago
Blinds? As in window coverings? Weird thing to steal. Maybe they were silk or expensive fabric that could be resold to make other items. Not doubting the costs. I had a client put $50k Hunted Douglas, Silhouette shades into a new house, only to have the Home Owner’s Association (HOA) say they couldn’t have white and they would need to replace them and they were custom and non returnable. (The HOA relented and gave them and several other homeowners with the same problem a grandfathered in exception and changed the CC&Rs to explicitly state that window coverings not just anything visible from the outside needs approval from the HOA’s architectural review board.)
Load More Replies... #32
Alfred Ladewig Circa 1920s
Alfred Ladewig, alias Wallace, John Walker, Atkins; charged on provisional warrant with stealing by trick the sum of 204AUD, at Brisbane, the property of Alfred Walter Thomlinson
#33
Joseph Messenger. 1922
Joseph Messenger and Valerie Lowe were arrested in 1921 for breaking into an army warehouse and stealing boots and overcoats to the value of 29 pounds 3 shillings
Crescent 3 1 year ago
Is it me, or do A LOT of the guys appear to be REALLY short? Maybe we need a banana for scale.
Catherine Graves 1 year ago
The clothing style of this period makes the length of the body look shortened. Waists are much higher than worn now, trouser leg is shorter and even the length of sleeve is often short, especially in a class of society who would often wear second hand clothing or whatever was inexpensive. Men were slightly shorter than 100 years later, but not by much.
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#34
Ah Low. May 31, 1928
Drinking my Covfefe 1 year ago
What is with all these guys with the same first name on here? Ah.
K_Tx 1 year ago
Ah is actually their surname (last name), if I remember correctly.
Load More Replies... #35
Emily Gertrude Hemsworth, 14 May 1925
Emily Hemsworth killed her three-week-old son but could not remember any details of the murder. She was found not guilty due to insanity
#36
Ah Chong, 11 July 1928
#37
Valerie Lowe, 15 February 1922
Valerie Lowe and Joseph Messenger were arrested in 1921 for breaking into an army warehouse and stealing boots and overcoats to the value of 29 pounds 3 shillings
#39
Frank Murray Alias Harry Williams. 1929
Harry Williams was sentenced to 12 months of hard labour in March 1929 for breaking, entering and stealing. He ‘disposes of stolen property to patrons of hotel bars or to persons in the street … professing to be a second-hand dealer
Mike F 1 year ago
I was thinking that his barber should have gotten life.
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#40
John Walter Ford, Oswald Clive Nash. 1921
#41
Ronald Frederick Schmidt, 13 June 1921
#42
Sidney Kelly. 1924
Sidney Kelly was arrested many times and much written about in newspapers during the 1920s, 30s and 40s.
He was charged with numerous offences including shooting, and assault, and in the 1940s was a pioneer of illegal baccarat gaming in Sydney
Pandarosa 1 year ago
Sidney Kelly ran with all the big razor-gang names of the era in Sydney such as "Squizzy" Taylor, "Snowy" Cutmore and Norman Bruhn. In 1930 he was sentenced in Melbourne to 5 years' imprisonment and 15 lashes of the cat o' nine tails for razor slashing. When he got out, he moved back to Sydney and became rich running the Baccarat scene. When he died at 48 he owned a mansion in Centennial Park and a £50,000 fortune, which was never found.
#43
Leslie Louis Bernstein, 29 November 1929
Bernstein (under the alias “L Berman”) was the subject of a warrant issued in early 1929 charged with obtaining a diamond ring value 14 pounds by false pretences from an Oxford Street jeweller
#44
Greta Massey, 26 January 1923
Greta Massey was an energetic impostor, forger and ‘hotel barber’ whose aliases included the surnames Gordon, Spencer, Crawford, Robins and Simpson as well as ‘Nurse Campbell’ and ‘Nurse Nicholas’
PFD 1 year ago
I found an explanation in a news report from 1918. It was someone who frequented hotels, boarding houses etc and went through the clothes of other boarders while they were out.
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#45
Alfred John (Or Francis) West. 1922
West is mentioned in the NSW Criminal Register as a ‘pickpocket and spieler’
#46
Sidney Langby, 9 December 1924
Sidney Langby, 18, was one of a group of seven young men convicted in early 1925 of a series of break and enters in Sydney
Richard Graham 1 year ago
Reminds me of Elisha Cook, Jr. (the "gunsel" in "The Maltese Falcon").
#47
Norman Wallace, 29 May 1923
#48
B. Smith, Gertrude Thompson And Vera Mcdonald 25 January 1928
#49
Thomas Maria, Arthur Wyatt, And Patrick Dangar (Alias Brosnan), C. 1920
#50
George Whitehall. 1922
George Whitehall, carpenter, handed himself into Newtown police after hacking to death his common-law wife, Ida Parker on Thursday afternoon 21 February 1922, at their home in Pleasant Avenue, Erskineville
Hey Kat 1 year ago
From Reddit: SYDNEY, Friday-.-The trial was concluded to-day of George Henry Whitehall (40), carpenter, charged with murdering Ida Emma Parker with an axe. The jury returned a verdict of guilty of murder, but added a rider that the crime had been committed during a fit of temporary insanity under great provocation. Whitehall, in a statement yesterday from the dock, said he was not guilty. He went on to say that he had been in bad health for some time past. He remembered having an altercation with the deceased over a girl named Helma. His recollection of the events was hazy. He recollected holding an axe over the woman, and seeing the woman lying on the floor. The accused said he was very fond of the deceased.
#51
Walter Keogh. 1922
Identified as a pickpocket, and later in 1928 (26 December, Group 4 p. 15) as a ‘suspected person and bogus land salesman’
#52
Spencer Cornford, 9 December 1924
#53
Albert Stewart Warnkin And Adolf Gustave Beutler. 1920
Albert Stewart Warnkin is listed in the NSW Police Gazette of 10 November 1920, as charged with attempting to carnally know a girl eight years old. No entry is found for Beutler
#54
Ernest James Montague. 1927
#55
Masterman Thomas Scoringe. 1922
Crescent 3 1 year ago (edited)
This is an epic name. It sounds like something out of a Dickens novel or Harry Potter. And wait, there's a reasonable way to pronounce the last name that rhymes with "orange."
#57
Ack Samuels (Obscured), Howard Fletcher And Michael Patrick Ryan, 1 August 1930
#58
Isabella Higgs, 21 February 1924
#59
May Blake, 1 September 1930
Tiny Dancer 1 year ago
From another site (https://flashbak.com/villains-in-furs-incredible-mugshots-of-female-prisoners-in-the-early-20th-century-432592/): "May Blake, 1 September 1930 – ‘charged with having cocaine unlawfully in her possession.’ She was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment and fined 250 pounds."
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What do you think ?
K- THULU 1 year ago
"Rizz masters"? FFS, talk like a freaking adult.... enough of this " hello, fellow kids" speak.... After 2 years, I'm clearly too old for this site....
Jack Burton 1 year ago
What does rizz masters even mean ? Not american here
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David Beaulieu 1 year ago
Ok... 1) Rizz master? Go back to Snapchat please. 2) Most of these people look broken by society and desperate. 3) This is how people dressed 100 years ago. Every man had A Suit. This is their only clothes. They wore it every day.
Learner Panda 1 year ago
Two things strike me as being very different from this time period; the numbers of subjects wearing hats which obscure their faces; and how many look like they are posing for a modelling portfolio!
Bettye McKee 1 year ago
People did not go out in public unless properly dressed. For men (and women) this included wearing a hat.
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shanila.pheonix_ 1 year ago
is this just me, or does this seem like we are glorifying criminals..?
The Original Bruno 1 year ago
So now we're just straight up glamorizing criminals? OK, the old-fashioned outfits are very cool, but it seems that some of these people are being listed just for the thousand-yard gaze of psychotic, abusive behavior.
K- THULU 1 year ago
"Rizz masters"? FFS, talk like a freaking adult.... enough of this " hello, fellow kids" speak.... After 2 years, I'm clearly too old for this site....
Jack Burton 1 year ago
What does rizz masters even mean ? Not american here
Load More Replies... David Beaulieu 1 year ago
Ok... 1) Rizz master? Go back to Snapchat please. 2) Most of these people look broken by society and desperate. 3) This is how people dressed 100 years ago. Every man had A Suit. This is their only clothes. They wore it every day.
Learner Panda 1 year ago
Two things strike me as being very different from this time period; the numbers of subjects wearing hats which obscure their faces; and how many look like they are posing for a modelling portfolio!
Bettye McKee 1 year ago
People did not go out in public unless properly dressed. For men (and women) this included wearing a hat.
Load More Replies... shanila.pheonix_ 1 year ago
is this just me, or does this seem like we are glorifying criminals..?
The Original Bruno 1 year ago
So now we're just straight up glamorizing criminals? OK, the old-fashioned outfits are very cool, but it seems that some of these people are being listed just for the thousand-yard gaze of psychotic, abusive behavior.
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