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People Are Sharing Pics Of Life 50-100 Years Ago And They Might Put Things In A New Perspective
The easiest way for us to get a glimpse into the good old days is to open up our family's photo album. But what if we go through the images and instead of calming down our curiosity, they only fuel it? Easy. We open up the subreddit r/TheWayWeWere next.
It's a place where folks share pictures from 50, 100, and even more years ago to show what everyday life looked like in the past. Featuring old photos, scanned documents, articles, and personal anecdotes, this subreddit has become one of the biggest vintage archives online.
Continue scrolling and check out why 528K people subscribe to r/TheWayWeWere.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
Mary Wallace: First Female Bus Driver For Chicago Transit Authority (1974)
RELATED:
#2
My Ridiculously Attractive Grandparents Sitting For A Portrait In The Early 1940s
The last 100 years have produced profound changes in human history.
Wars, technological developments, progress in civil rights, and breakthroughs in science and medicine, the old world has been swept away. Whether it's for better or worse.
Centuries-old empires crumbled as new ideologies – like communism and fascism – took over in many parts of the world. Wars in the early part of the 20th century put an end to the colonial world and gave birth to new nations. However, these wars also cost millions of lives and trillions of dollars.
#3
My Mom On Her Wedding Day November 1951
#4
Cats Blackie & Brownie Catching Squirts Of Milk During Milking At Arch Badertscher's Dairy Farm In Fresno, California, 1954
Throughout the past century, technological innovations have transformed our lives in ways we never dreamed of. Progressive ideas emerged and changed the world as women, African Americans, and the LGBTQ community demanded, and often won, equal rights; from the ratification of the 19th Amendment in the United States to the legalization of same-sex marriage in many countries. But recent civil rights conflicts tell us the fight for equality is not over.
#5
A Native American Girl Of The Kiowa Tribe, Oklahoma, 1894
#6
My Great-Great-Grandmother Sometime In The 1890s
The pandemic that began ravaging the world in 2020 reminds us that even though we can buy a ticket to go to space, we're still vulnerable to viruses that can shut down economies and disrupt society.
People are hoping science can save Earth from the devastating changes to the climate that continue to imperil the ecosystems of our planet. In the coming years, natural disasters may have an increasingly impactful role in the course of history. Who knows where we will end up in another 100.
#7
Protesting The High School Dress Code That Banned Slacks For Girls, Brooklyn C.1940
#8
Two Pals (1920)
#9
Gay Men Pose For A Photo While Being Detained At A Police Station For Being Homosexuals In Mexico, 1935
#10
1945: The Day Daddy Came Home. Gunner Hector Murdoch Had Been Gone Over Four Years, Most Of It As A Prisoner Of War In Singapore. His Wife Rosina And Son John Hadn't Known If He Was Dead Or Alive. He Got Home On His Birthday
#11
Dad Showing Off His Skill To The Surprise Of His Little Daughter In Melbourne, Australia, Ca. 1940s
#12
London's First Black Police Officer, PC Norwell Roberts, On Point Duty Near Charing Cross Station, 1968
Stephen Branley 3 years ago
He's definitely on point duty. That's a fantastic point he's got there.
#13
This 1955 Photo Is One Of Walter Chandoha’s Most Famous Shots. “My Daughter Paula And The Kitten Both ‘Smiled’ For The Camera At The Same Time. …but The Cat’s Not Smiling, He’s Meowing”
#14
Sisters In Skirts, 1950s
#15
My Great Grandmother In The Early 1900’s. Thought She Looked Too Awesome Not To Share
#16
My Parents’ Wedding Photo, Okinawa, 1964
#17
My Grandpa (Left) And His Best Friend Willie Hall During The Korean War. Those Smiles Say It All
#18
My Grandfather, Great-Grandfather, Great-Great-Grandfather, And Great-Great-Great Grandmother, Ca 1918
#19
My Great-Grandfather That Was Too Poor To Afford A Suit In Sicily, So He Had To Pose In Front Of A Cardboard Cut-Out, 1930s~
#20
This Is Hazel, My Grandmother-In-Law. 1916
#21
My Grandmother And Mom Circa 1974. My Grandmother Took My Mother To National Parks Over The Course Of A Few Months, Just The Two Of Them
#22
“Our Michael”, 1938
#23
A Sailor "Meets" His Baby For The First Time After Fourteen Months At Sea, 1940s
Andy Acceber 3 years ago
Okay, some parenting lessons may be needed. Day One: How to Hold the Baby.
#24
Grandma And Papa In 1937. She Passed Away Today At 100 Years Old
#25
Last Picture Of My Great Uncle Kennith, Before He Drowned In The Buffalo River, 1940’s. He Gave His Life Saving My Grandpa
#26
My Mother Made Us Matching Dresses For A Fancy Party Back In 1954
#27
Saw This Photo Posted Here.. Noticed I Have The Photo The Grandmother Took That Day. (Bought At An Antique Shop Years Ago In Phx)
#28
A Parisian Woman With Her Cat In Her Cannabis Garden, 1910
Fish Boden 3 years ago
I have a cat. All I need now is the garden (and some law changes please).
#29
This Is My Grandma Dorothy. She Was A Dress Designer In The 50s Which Always Made This Photo More Funny To Me. She Passed Away Today At Age 89. A Life Well Lived
#30
Vintage Photo From A Family Album, Freeport, Il
Alexandru Bucur 3 years ago
Besides the obvious that he is a black man and she a white woman in the 1900s, when this required a lot of guts, I love the fact he's wearing puttees as part of civilian dress. This was pretty common before WW1. After the war... not so much.
#31
Me And My Best Friend Rocky Watching TV, 1959
#32
Ladies At A Lesbian Club In Chelsea, 1953
#33
A Mostly Happy Family Outing At Chicken Bone Beach, The Segregated Section Of Atlantic City's Beach Area, New Jersey, 1950s (Photographed By John W. Mosley)
#34
1976 vs. 2018; 42 Years And We're Still Going Strong
#35
Young Oyster Shuckers, Port Royal, South Carolina, 1909
Karl Baxter 3 years ago
Crikey - the “thousand yard stare” at that young age. Life must have been tough for these girls.
#36
Reddit Seems To Love My Taita (Grandma), So Here Is Another One Of Her From 1950’s Beirut
#37
The Wedding Rings Of My Ggm, Gggm, Ggggm, And Gggggm Oldest Dating Back To 1832!
#38
Police Officer Unaware Of The Imminent Danger, Chicago, 1959
#39
After Spending More Than Five Years In A North Vietnamese Camp, Lt. Col. Robert L. Stirm Is Reunited With His Family At Travis Afb, March 13, 1973
Jo Morris 3 years ago
This photo, called "Burst of Joy" won a Pulitzer prize. It has an unhappy ending though. According to Wikipedia "Despite outward appearances, the reunion was an unhappy one for Stirm. Three days before he arrived in the United States, the same day he was released from captivity, Stirm received a Dear John letter from his wife Loretta informing him that their marriage was over. Stirm later learned that Loretta had been with other men throughout his captivity, receiving marriage proposals from three of them. In 1974, the Stirms divorced and Loretta remarried, but Lieutenant Colonel Stirm was still ordered by the courts to provide her with 43% of his military retirement pay once he retired from the Air Force. Stirm was later promoted to full Colonel and retired from the Air Force in 1977."
#40
My Grandpa’s Schoolhouse In Texas Ca. 1930’s. He Was Always Embarrassed Of This Picture Because He Was Too Poor To Afford Shoes
Karl Baxter 3 years ago
My dad remembered going to school in Ireland in the early 1940s alongside kids with no shoes. Extreme poverty is more recent than you think.
#41
Women Trainees Of The Lapd Practice Firing Their Newly Issued Revolvers, 1948
#42
Dublin, 1962
#43
Caught On The Firescape, 1946
#44
Offerings To The Unknown Dead, Kyoto, Japan, 1963
#45
The 70s Transition: My Parents In 1968 And Again In 1970
#46
My American Grandmother Visiting Athens In The 1960s
Sunshine Sunshine 3 years ago
Such style in a lot of these pictures! Too bad nobody really dares to wear anymore
#47
Listening To The Radio On The Beach, Circa 1940s
#48
The Rolled-Stockings Trend Of The 1920's Brought On A Fad Of Hand-Painted Knees
#49
Class Divide In Britain, 1930's
Wilf 3 years ago
It's the Eton school uniform. Top hats were only dropped in the 1940s.
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Stephen Wild 3 years ago
This is a very famous photograph and has been well researched. The class divide is actually far less than one might imagine... the 'poor' boys are actually of the lower middle class, while the 'rich' boys are only really upper middle class. They are dressed very formally (full Eton dress uniform) because they had been attending a cricket game at lords. The three boys on the right had reasonably long and happy lives; the two rich boys both died young in tragic circumstances.. Story here -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toffs_and_Toughs
Stephanie Chapman 3 years ago
Recommended watch, the Up Series documentaries from Britain. The series starts in the 1960s with 7 Up, where a group of seven year olds from different class groups are interviewed and hang out together. Then every 7 years the documentarian would come back and show how their lives have changed. The last part of the series so far is 63 Up!https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_(film_series)
BastWren 3 years ago
Brilliant series! I caught it from the start and it is one of the most fascinating documentaries I have seen. It is extremely well done, imo, and I would love to watch all of them again, back to back in ascending order.
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Samantha Lomb 3 years ago
I'd much rather hang with the working class boys than whatever posh bullshit is happening on the left.
Si 3 years ago (edited)
The Harrovians were Peter Wagner and Thomas Norwood Armitage "Tim" Dyson, who had arranged to be at Grace Gates at 2 pm, where Wagner's father would pick them up and drive them to Russ Hill, the Wagners’ country home in Surrey, for the weekend.The other three boys were George Salmon, Jack Catlin, and George Young, 13-year-old pupils at the local Church of England school. They had visited the dentist that morning and decided to skip school to earn money at Lord's by carrying luggage and returning hired cushions for the deposit. The photographer, Jimmy Sime, worked for the Central Press Agency; Sime took several shots of the five boys outside Grace Gates.Ian Jack speculates that Sime solicited the cooperation of the three "toughs", but not that of the two "toffs". Peter Wagner studied natural sciences at Peterhouse, Cambridge. In 1943, he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Royal Corps of Signals. However, he suffered from pericarditis and never saw active service during the Second World War. After being discharged from the army in 1945, he entered the family stockbroking firm, married, and had three daughters; he became mentally unstable in the 1970s and died in Hellingly Hospital in 1984. Tim Dyson died of diphtheria 13 months after the photograph was taken, in August 1938. This was shortly after travelling to join his parents in Trimulgherry, British India, where his father, Lt.-Col. George St. John Armitage Dyson, was serving as an army officer. George Dyson died in 1942 in a Japanese prisoner of war camp in Korea. During the Second World War, George Salmon served as an anti-aircraft gunner on board HMS Duckworth. After the war, he worked for Rightons Limited, a metal supplier. He was married in 1998 and was still residing in Marylebone when he died in 2000. Jack Catlin's family moved to Rickmansworth soon after 1937; in 2010 he was widowed, remarried and living in Weymouth. Jack Catlin died in January 2011 at the age of 85, survived by his wife Sheila, his son, daughter, and grandchildren. George Young was also married in 1998.Young had a flat in The Barbican.
Suzanne Haigh 3 years ago
This was taken when the council school kids were making fun of the "toffs" from Eton. No the posh kids were not happy that is why the others are smiling. You must admit they do look a bit daft dressed as old wealthy men.
Reinaldo Fuentes 3 years ago
Looks to me like the kids on the right are taking the piss out of the ones to the left.
Luis Hernandez Dauajare 3 years ago
It was a school uniform, from Eton, I believe. They're kids!
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Mosheh Wolf 2 years ago
Interesting that the kids on the right all are wearing jackets. The kid on the far right is obviously wearing hand-me-downs, but they are all wearing clothes in decent condition. So not poor, but middle class and lower middle class.
Kelvin Scott 2 years ago
pity its still the same , look at picture of Boris and his Etonian mates, those working class kids probably ended up dead on the decisions of the Posh lot in only a decade.
Janet Graham 2 years ago
Those little rascals are the same ones we saw in a prior photo with them standing in front of O'Meara's The Irish House.
Cooper Terry 2 years ago
Look we middle class people may have less money but we sure darn have spirit
Joseph Gomes 2 years ago
The kids without top hats are the same as in the Dublin picture above!!!
Bama Belle 3 years ago
They were kids, playing the hands they were dealt, good or bad. It kinda looks like the boys on the right were making fun of them. But yeah, the other kids are the twats.
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![My Great Grandmother With One Of Her Paintings [philadelphia, 1940s]](https://static.boredpanda.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/611e20de00c08_s3gexrtcv1g11__700.jpg "My Great Grandmother With One Of Her Paintings [philadelphia, 1940s]")
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What do you think ?
Hilary James 3 years ago
I have all my grandparents and great grandparents old picture albums ! Come on over !
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Doug Thomas 3 years ago
It was my grandfather's birthday. This WWII "happy event" shows the wear and tear of the times on the faces of the participants. My mother - upper left - almost has a smile. Who knew in 1943 where the war would take us, how it would end? war-birthd...549034.jpg 
Tiny Dancer 3 years ago
My other fave pic from that era. 1967, my Mum and Dad looking like freakin' movie stars at the Fortuna Hotel in Bangkok, Thailand. In a band, they were fresh out of a night in jail because their shady agent forgot to renew their visas. Still no sign of their luggage, they had to borrow the hotel's bathrobes while they waited. Love the back story behind the "glamour" shot, lol! 1967-Dad-a...63e818.jpg 
Tiny Dancer 3 years ago
My parents on their first date in 1963. I came along about a year later :-) 1963-Dad-a...c52148.jpg 
Pia LaVache 3 years ago
This is a reminder that parents / grandparents were once young people doing what young people do. My dad used to always say “of course I know what you’re up to, because I did the same things when I was your age” and I would always think “you were never my age age, you’re the dad”
Tiny Dancer 3 years ago
Lastly, 'cause I could go on and on (you're welcome!), here I am with Mum and Dad at their "second" wedding in 1974 (big semi-scandal at the time, I'm the only one that didn't know it was their first). Wonderful example of my Dad's style and porn 'stache. And I look adorable. 1974-Mum-a...b84dae.jpg 
Amina Hays 3 years ago
It genuinely saddens me that when people look at photographs 100 years from now, they'll see garbage like their grandmother's trout pout and not at all like the elegance and grace of 'our' 100 years ago.
sharron lynn parsons 3 years ago
I enjoyed the post, so different, I truly love old, styles as compared to today, is blah !!!
Hilary James 3 years ago
I have all my grandparents and great grandparents old picture albums ! Come on over !
Load More Replies... Doug Thomas 3 years ago
It was my grandfather's birthday. This WWII "happy event" shows the wear and tear of the times on the faces of the participants. My mother - upper left - almost has a smile. Who knew in 1943 where the war would take us, how it would end? war-birthd...549034.jpg
Tiny Dancer 3 years ago
My other fave pic from that era. 1967, my Mum and Dad looking like freakin' movie stars at the Fortuna Hotel in Bangkok, Thailand. In a band, they were fresh out of a night in jail because their shady agent forgot to renew their visas. Still no sign of their luggage, they had to borrow the hotel's bathrobes while they waited. Love the back story behind the "glamour" shot, lol! 1967-Dad-a...63e818.jpg
Tiny Dancer 3 years ago
My parents on their first date in 1963. I came along about a year later :-) 1963-Dad-a...c52148.jpg
Pia LaVache 3 years ago
This is a reminder that parents / grandparents were once young people doing what young people do. My dad used to always say “of course I know what you’re up to, because I did the same things when I was your age” and I would always think “you were never my age age, you’re the dad”
Tiny Dancer 3 years ago
Lastly, 'cause I could go on and on (you're welcome!), here I am with Mum and Dad at their "second" wedding in 1974 (big semi-scandal at the time, I'm the only one that didn't know it was their first). Wonderful example of my Dad's style and porn 'stache. And I look adorable. 1974-Mum-a...b84dae.jpg
Amina Hays 3 years ago
It genuinely saddens me that when people look at photographs 100 years from now, they'll see garbage like their grandmother's trout pout and not at all like the elegance and grace of 'our' 100 years ago.
sharron lynn parsons 3 years ago
I enjoyed the post, so different, I truly love old, styles as compared to today, is blah !!!
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