/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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Grandparents, parents, me and my sister. 1970.
My Great Grandfather Thomas Knowles outside his bakery in Brighton, England c. 1901.
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.
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)
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.
she is third from the right
My great-great-grandparents, Emilia and Nicola, were married on 20 September 1903 in Agropoli (Italy)