/r/TheWayWeWere
What was normal everyday life like for people living 50, 100, or more years ago? Featuring old photos, scanned documents, articles, and personal anecdotes that offer a glimpse into the past.
About TheWayWeWere
What was normal everyday life like for people living 50, 100, or more years ago? Featuring old photos, scanned documents, articles, and personal anecdotes that offer a glimpse into the past. This subreddit is focused on content at least 40 years old.
Please treat the comment section with kindness. Trolling, copypasta and unrelated arguments are against the rules of decorum.
Filter by decade:
Submission guidelines:
Content should be 40 years or older. Please put the approximate location and year in your title.
Especially appreciated are photos that show what people did and experienced, but posed photos are fine too.
If the source of your content is not given by your link, or if you have more information that would be helpful for people who want to learn more, please include it in a comment.
You do not need to put the dimensions of the image in the title of your post, e.g. [640 x 480].
Please do not submit or upvote content about historically notable people (politicians, celebrities, etc.) and events. Please post it to another subreddit.
Reposts are allowed as long as it has not been submitted within the last 3 months AND it does not already appear in the top 50 posts this year. This allows people new to the subreddit to get a chance to see quality previously-submitted content.
Find images to post by viewing our Resources Page. Please suggest additional resources by messaging the mods.
Related subreddits
For video, see /r/TheWayWeWereOnVideo
OldPhotos multireddit - contains 25 old photos subreddits, including many of the following:
Photos of major historical events and historically notable people: /r/HistoryPorn
Colorized photos (historically notable and otherwise): /r/ColorizedHistory and /r/Colorization
Early photography, with a focus on early camera technology: /r/earlyphotography
The suave and debonair ladies and gents of yesteryear: /r/oldschoolcool, /r/retroparents and /r/OldSchoolCelebs. For the more sultry side: /r/vgb (may be nsfw)
Modern photos overlaying historical photos: /r/OldPhotosInRealLife
The stranger side of life: /r/OldSchoolRidiculous
Black History: /r/BlackHistoryPhotos
Extant buildings during construction: /r/HalfbuiltHistory. Buildings lost to history: /r/Lost_Architecture
Time-specific pictures: /r/VictorianEra, /r/1920s, /r/1950s, /r/1960s, /r/1970s
Vintage advertising: /r/vintageads
Newsreel videos: /r/NewsReels
Classic and modern pinup art and photos: /r/pinup
Our more-recent past: /r/vintage and /r/vintageads
Past concepts of the future: /r/HowWeThoughtWeWouldBe and /r/VintageSciFi/
Old time radio programs: /r/OTR
/r/TheWayWeWere
1,463,682 Subscribers
A School Class Photo; Circa 1890’s New York
02:16 UTC
Farmer Jim’s in Cortland, Ohio, owned and operated by my family in the 1970s and 80s.
A story that’s been passed down is of a woman who was struck by lightning at this pool. I grew up afraid of lightning because of it.
01:37 UTC
My Grandfather Great-Grandfather Great-Great-Grandfather and Great-Great-Great Grandmother ca 1918
01:23 UTC
My grandma on horseback, Palo Pinto County Texas, 1980s.
23:55 UTC
USS Shenandoah over Ocean Boulevard Los Angeles - 1924
22:31 UTC
Groovy!
Grandparents, parents, me and my sister. 1970.
21:49 UTC
Portrait of a young woman photographed in 1895.
21:44 UTC
Great Grandad the baker
My Great Grandfather Thomas Knowles outside his bakery in Brighton, England c. 1901.
21:29 UTC
1968 or 69. Me (smallest one) with my siblings and our older cousin
21:24 UTC
My paternal Great Grandfather, George Walter Peters born, 18th April 1901 in Greenwich . I’m guessing he’s around his 20’s in this picture. My birth family has no idea who took the photo or when it was taken. It is the only picture I have of him.
George sadly passed away on 17th October 1938 at 37, due to lobar pneumonia. The family myth also suggests that he passed away due to grief. This is because my Great Grandma Rose passed away at 35 on 28th February the same year, due to diphtheria (but the family myth for her is that she also died due to childbirth after having my Grandad James, her last child, on 20th January in the same year). The myth goes that George visited her grave everyday, and eventually the grief caught up with him and reunited him with his wife later in the year.
20:39 UTC
A young family in Brooklyn going for a Sunday outing, New York, 1966. (Photo by Diane Arbus)
20:25 UTC
The Dick Kerr's Ladies team take on the French Ladies International team at Herne Hill, London in the late 1910s or early 1920s i think
19:46 UTC
My Great (x5) Grandfather and Grandmother
I can’t exactly remember but I believe they were alive around the 1500-1600s they’re the oldest picture I have in my family Tree but the tree carries on to the 1300s I wish I had something from then (I don’t think cameras were invented then yet? I could be wrong)
19:04 UTC
People enjoying life in Halmstad, Sweden, in the 30's
18:47 UTC
My Grandfather in the projectionist’s booth of a movie theatre in Ontario, Canada - early 1970’s
Back in the day, there was only one movie showing, but you had the choice to see it at 7:00 or 9:00 (or during weekend matinees in the afternoon if you were so inclined). You could smoke in the balcony or the last 15 rows of the main auditorium floor and you usually got to see a cartoon or two before the main feature started.
There were two projectors in the booth and the movies were divided up on multiple reels. The projectionist would switch between the two projectors at a point in time that was noted by small marks that they made on the top right-hand corner of the film. When the first mark showed up on screen, the projectionist would start the second projector and let it run in tandem with the first one. The second mark would tell him when to switch over to the second projector and the new reel would be shown on the screen.
17:40 UTC
Four English children, Central Park, N.Y.C., 1962. (Diane Arbus)
17:40 UTC
My Grandfather in 1943 - Gunner on a warship that was torpedoed by the Nazis, fortunately he survived and lived to be 98YO.
17:17 UTC
My great grandfather, a 1st Battalion Grenadier Guard at the Tower of London, July 1929
15:36 UTC
Forty seven pupils in the second, third and fourth grades attended school in this one room with one teacher; there are not enough books nor desks. Kentucky Straight Creek Coal Company, Belva Mine, abandoned after explosion [in] Dec. 1945, Four Mile, Bell County, Kentucky. Photo by Russell Lee
14:33 UTC
This better?
13:35 UTC
My Grandmother’s High School Basketball Team (CT, USA) 1945
she is third from the right
12:28 UTC
Dad showed me this picture he took of the Sydney Opera House when it first opened in 1973. The skyline is certainly different now.
11:18 UTC
Marriage in 1903
My great-great-grandparents, Emilia and Nicola, were married on 20 September 1903 in Agropoli (Italy)
09:58 UTC
1929. A Buick about to travel by train.
09:57 UTC
September 12, 1930: Bits 'n Pieces.....
09:56 UTC
Girl who sells pieces of ore and Iron Range souvenirs to tourists. Hibbing, Minnesota. Photo by John Vachon. August 1941.
07:07 UTC
Bottling ketchup at the Heinz factory, Pittsburgh, 1897.
05:36 UTC
Girls Basketball Team from Apalit, Pampanga, Philippines ca 1910s. Basketball was introduced in 1910 during the American colonial period by teachers through the YMCA and the Public School system as a woman's sport.
05:19 UTC