Get Premium
Dark mode theme is available exclusively for premium users. Learn more about the benefits of subscribing.
No fees, cancel anytime.
Dark Mode 
No fees, cancel anytime 
50 Rare Vintage Pictures Showing The Everyday Grit Of Working Class Americans Back In The Day
Interview With Expert
You could argue that the history of humankind is the history of work. In order to thrive, not just survive, people learned to specialize in a wide range of crafts. However, in this day and age, with so many folks working from behind a computer, you can sometimes forget that it’s still working-class people who form the backbone of society. It’s workers who keep civilization running. It’s they who keep the literal and proverbial lights on.
Our team at Bored Panda has painstakingly curated this list of the most impressive and powerful vintage photos of the American working class. Scroll down for a trip into the past and enjoy these old-timey pictures. The details in them are fascinating!
Bored Panda wanted to learn about how current industry trends such as the spread of automation and generative AI might affect the working and middle classes, so we reached out to marketing psychology expert Matt Johnson, PhD, the host of the Human Nature and Psychology of Marketing blogs. You'll find the insights he shared with us below.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
Icarus, Empire State Building, 1930
RELATED:
#2
Boy Carrying Hats. Bleecker St., New York, 1912
#3
Midnight At The Bowery Mission Bread Line, 1906-7
TiNaBoNiNa 1 year ago
Apparently, the Mission still exists. https://www.bowery.org/timeline/#section-1870s
#4
The Kitchen At Delmonico's, New York, 1902
Jrog 1 year ago
Delmonico's is the oldest NY high-end restaurants and steakhouse, in the Financial district, opened in 1827. They claim, the rather recklessly, to have invented the Egg Benedict (that were actually invented at the Waldorf Astoria), the Lobster Newburg (that is just a renaming of the French Thermidor), the strip steak (long predating the restaurant) and the Baked Alaska (that existed for over one century with the name "Norwegge Omelete"). They were involved in a nasty legal dispute over the name and copyright, and were closed for a few years until a recent reopening. They opened other branches, some of whom were apparently involved in serious health code violations.
#5
Laying Of The Cornerstone Of The Library Of Congress, Washington, D.C., 1890
#6
Workers In The Postage Stamp Gumming And Drying Room In The Stamp Division At The Bureau Of Engraving & Printing, 1895
#7
Worker Repairing Telegraph Line, 1862 Or 1863
TiNaBoNiNa 1 year ago
An early lineman. Telegraph lines ran on electricity, so this was a dangerous job.
#8
Garment Factory,1900s
MK-C PHD 1 year ago
They enjoyed living indoors and eating. That was a good job for women of the day who had little education and needed the income. Remember what alternatives were available to women then. It was respectable and clean. Some (not all) would have been able to keep working after marriage until pregnancy forced them out (a practice that lasted well into the 1970s!) so all in all this was a happy(ier) place.
#9
Potatoes Move Down A Conveyor Belt Before Being Made Into Potato Flakes, Between 1892 - 1952
#10
Worker Prepares Gum For Postage Stamps In The Stamp Division At The Bureau Of Engraving & Printing, 1895
#11
Men And Women Working Inside Of An Orange Packing House, Probably Covina, California, 1900
Huddo's sister 1 year ago
One of the main things my family used to grow was citrus. Carting-fr...0-jpeg.jpg 
#12
Standard Oil Strikers Throwing Bricks At Bayonne Police, 1915
Jrog 1 year ago (edited)
Workers demanded a small pay rise, the 8-hours day (6 days a week), and basic safety conditions. John D. Rockefeller was notorious for his hard line against labor demands, so Standard oil denied the request. 1200 workers walked out and camped in front of the gates. Standard Oil called in 250 strikebreakers and an undisclosed number of undercover "agent provocateurs" to infiltrate the protest; then they called their attorney Pierre Garvey, who was also a republican politician as well as the town major. Garvey sent in the police to disrupt the protest through violent means. Police shot and killed a worker. Workers rioted and tried to set fire to a refinery building. Police killed five more workers, and the protesters rioted throwing stones to the police (in the photo). Ultimately the company accepted some scaled down demands, but later reneged leading to a second strike in 1916 that ended up with two dozen dead workers and significant concessions on pay raise, working conditions & safety
#13
Sweatshop Of Mr. Goldstein, 30 Suffolk St., New York, 1908
#14
Coal Passers Talk Strike, 1911
#15
Self-Master Colony - Rug Making, 1910
TiNaBoNiNa 1 year ago
The Self Master Colony also known as Floyd's Self Master Village was a residence for men in need of help that existed from 1908-1938. It was an experiment in housing the homeless in Union Township, Union County, New Jersey. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Master_Colony
#16
Linotype Operators In The Erikson Building, Seattle, Washington, 1906
Bill Swallow 1 year ago (edited)
Considering Linotypes worked using hot molten lead, not the healthiest idea to run one in an enclosed unventilated space. Yet they were the indispensible flip side, with the movable type printing press, in spreading news, literacy, and literature on a truly massive scale, and were a much-overlooked major force in shaping today's world. We've moved beyond them, which is a good thing in many ways, but we owe Mr. Merganthaler quite a debt. Here's the whole story - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDM-EbDCiQg EDIT: System Source Museum near Baltimore has one on display. In Twilight Zone's episode "Printer's Devil", you can see Burgess Meredith run one.
#17
Construction Of Great Northern Railroad Tunnel Beneath Downtown Seattle, 1903
#18
Workers Bottling Olive Oil, San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles, 1900
#19
Miss Eliza Combs, Typical Old Maid Worker, Massachusetts, 1895
#20
Five Workmen Standing Around The Rotary Drill System In Action, Brayer Field, 1910
#21
A Room In A Garment Factory With Men And A Woman, Standing At High Tables, Making Patterns, 1900s
#22
Toledo Terminal Maumee River Bridge Workers, Toledo, Ohio, Around 1902
#23
Workers Weighing And Sacking Sugar At The Pacific Sugar Company, Visalia, Tulare County, California, 1900
Kabuki Kitsune 1 year ago
See the dust in the sunlight? If you want to shudder, look up "Sugar dust explosion" on google, and you'll feel real sorry for these fellows.
#24
Cedar River Pipeline Riveting Gang, Laying Pipe To Bring Water To Seattle, Washington, 1899
#25
Railroad Construction Worker Straightening Track, Pile Of Twisted Rails In Background, 1862 Or 1863
#26
Seattle's Water Pipeline Worker, 1926
#27
U.S. Postal Employees Sorting Mail, 1890
#28
Workers Packing Chipped Beef, 1910
#29
Garment Workers, Union Sq., Striking, Between 1915 And 1920
#30
Workers Doing Laundry At The Bureau Of Engraving & Printing, 1895
Kabuki Kitsune 1 year ago
This was the first step in printing currency. The "paper" currency... isn't made out of paper. It's cloth. This 'laundry' was taking rags and scrap fabric and washing it to clean it, before it would be shredded, mixed in large pots with some other fabrics, and then made into sheets which were used to print the bills on.
#31
Workers In An Olive Grove, Los Angeles, 1900
Barbara Wilcock 1 year ago
Ok. Never had olive oil from America. Interested what it tastes like
#32
Workers At The Knoxville Knitting Works In Knoxville, Tennessee, USA, 1910
Geoffrey Scott 1 year ago
The line of very young girls (center). Apparently, I've recently read, Fla wants to bring this back.
#33
Ring Facing, Between 1915 And 1920
Hippopotamuses 1 year ago
What is ring facing? I searched the term, but all the results referred to the position of the ring on the finger.
#34
Workers Wetting Sheets Prior To Printing Paper Money At The Bureau Of Engraving & Printing, 1895
Kabuki Kitsune 1 year ago
It's not paper. It's fabric. It's a rather closely protected mix or blend, but it's made out of cotton, linen, and a few other fabrics.
#35
Washington, D.C. Group Of Sanitary Commission Workers At The Entrance Of The Home Lodge, 1863
David 1 year ago
The Sanitary Commission held 2 jobs during the civil war. 1) To make sure Army camps met sanitary standards (like outhouses a certain distance from living areas, no vermin in camp kitchens, etc). And 2) Make sure the Contraband Camps (nickname for the camps that the army build for run-away slaves and their families bc before the emancipation proclamation, the legal grounds the US Army used was that the law allowed them confiscate "contraband for the war effort" so they would confiscate the run-aways as "war materials", and then free them right away. Made it all legal in the courts at the time) met sanitary standards for health and safety
#36
US Assay Office, Showing Workers In Lab, Seattle, 1905
Kabuki Kitsune 1 year ago
Gold and Silver assay... though they would also assay for other metals. Basically, they take samples of ore from mines, process it, and then use some rather complex math to figure out how much precious metals is present in various ores, and whether or not a mine was going to be profitable, or not. Some other metals they looked for were lead, copper, iron, and even mercury at some assay offices.
#37
Railroad Construction Workers Holding Track, 1862 Or 1863
Kabuki Kitsune 1 year ago
Black work gang, and no photo of a white foreman would put this after the civil war. More likely sometime in the 1890's, into the early 1900's.
#38
Keel Of New York, 1911
#41
Placer Mines, Worker Steaming Water To Assist With Mining Operations, Early 1900s
#42
"Making Pittsburgh Stogies," 1907-1908
#43
Construction Of Lower Level Of The State, War & Navy Dept., Close-Up View Of Workers In And Above Pit, 1884
TiNaBoNiNa 1 year ago
19 years post-Civil War. It was the hard work (for little pay) of these men who built these government buildings.
#44
Workers Moving Newly Printed Currency Into A Drying Box Where Sheets Will Dry Before The Next Wetting And Printing At The Bureau Of Engraving & Printing, 1890
#45
Workers Taking Mucilaged Sheets Of Postage Stamps From The Drying Box In The Gumming And Drying Room Of The Stamp Division At The Bureau Of Engraving & Printing, 1895
TiNaBoNiNa 1 year ago
I had to look that word up. "mucilage - a viscous secretion or bodily fluid. a polysaccharide substance extracted as a viscous or gelatinous solution from plant roots, seeds, etc., and used in medicines and adhesives. North American: an adhesive solution; gum or glue. From Latin "mucus."
#47
Interior View Of Northville Hatchery, Clark Boxes In Foreground, 1897
#48
Workers With A Mill Jitney Hauling Lumber, Bordeaux Lumber Company, 1919
TiNaBoNiNa 1 year ago
Thomas Bordeaux ran a logging & milling operation in Thurston County, WA, which is where Olympia is. You can see his house here: https://www.millionairesrow.net/80614thE.html#:~:text=Having%20mediocre%20luck%20with%20mining,in%20the%20Lumber%20Mercantile%20Company.
#49
Girl Driver On A Motor Mail Truck, Between 1893 - 1945
Hippopotamuses 1 year ago (edited)
Reverse image search reveals that this was taken in England between 1914 - 1918 https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205288472
#50
Toledo Computing Scale Company, Toledo, Ohio, 1905
#51
Report Of The Commission Of 1906 To Investigate The Condition Of The Blind In The State Of New York, 1907
M O'Connell 1 year ago
If anybody wants to page through that report, its 700 pages. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044096987557&seq=7
#52
Workers In A 100-Stamp Mill, California, 1900
Susan Reid Smith 1 year ago
Rock is being pulverized so gold can be extracted. That was hard deafening work.
#53
Interior Of Packing House, Probably Covina, California, 1900
Brittania Kelli 1 year ago
Imagine doing such physical labour while wearing all the layers of clothing they had to wear back then? Bloomers, petticoats, corsets or other boned shapewear, tight belt and all buttoned up to your chin and stockings down to your toes. How did they not faint constantly?
#54
A Group Of Sweatshop Workers, New York, 1908
#55
Railroad Construction Workers Straightening Track, 1862 Or 1863
Kabuki Kitsune 1 year ago
Post war, somewhere in the south. During reconstruction, where rails that were pulled up and destroyed by Union forces, need to be straightened.
Add New Image
What do you think ?
Hippopotamuses 1 year ago (edited)
Viktorija. You really need to pay more attention to your posts. Lack of information; one - very obvious - mistake, and one picture which was posted a couple of weeks ago. Lazy, lazy. lazy!
ƒιѕн 1 year ago (edited)
Agreed, I had to dig into every pic just trying to find info about it. Not sure why your were downvoted.
Load More Replies... Forrest Hobbs 1 year ago
Interesting. Thank you. Pay no attention to the small-minded critics.
SchadenFreudian Psychology 1 year ago
Is this meant to be a threat? Or an exercise in shaming people for speaking up about bad conditions?
Forrest Hobbs 1 year ago
If you're referring to olaff 422's comment: to my mind, it's just a meaningless word salad.
Load More Replies... Hippopotamuses 1 year ago (edited)
Viktorija. You really need to pay more attention to your posts. Lack of information; one - very obvious - mistake, and one picture which was posted a couple of weeks ago. Lazy, lazy. lazy!
ƒιѕн 1 year ago (edited)
Agreed, I had to dig into every pic just trying to find info about it. Not sure why your were downvoted.
Load More Replies... Forrest Hobbs 1 year ago
Interesting. Thank you. Pay no attention to the small-minded critics.
SchadenFreudian Psychology 1 year ago
Is this meant to be a threat? Or an exercise in shaming people for speaking up about bad conditions?
Forrest Hobbs 1 year ago
If you're referring to olaff 422's comment: to my mind, it's just a meaningless word salad.
Load More Replies...
Related on Bored Panda
