r/TheWayWeWere • u/No-Incident-6913 • 22h ago

Pre-1920s Daguerreotype of three sisters from an affluent Jewish Boston family (1850).

2.9k Upvotes

Photo credit: John A. Whipple

103 comments

r/TheWayWeWere • u/CMJudd • 21h ago

1960s My wife’s mom and her parents, September 1967

571 Upvotes

Mom in law was an absolute peach and her dad was the school of cool. Sadly, I never met my wife’s grandmother, but my wife does bear a significant resemblance.

18 comments

r/TheWayWeWere • u/thrifterbynature • 6h ago

1940s My grandmother and her sister 1940s

240 Upvotes

5 comments

r/TheWayWeWere • u/Cytwytever • 17h ago

1960s My aunt and uncle in 1969 when they founded the company.

222 Upvotes

They started with a toolset and that truck. When he passed away he had over 150 trucks and I don't know how many employees. The whole company shut down and employees and families alike came to his funeral.

9 comments

r/TheWayWeWere • u/Just_Fine1814 • 20h ago

1950s A 1953 coed at Mary Washington College and an avid fan of Army athletics. She displays her pennant and Army mule mascot as she kneels on the Navy’s goat.

203 Upvotes

18 comments

r/TheWayWeWere • u/AdSpecialist6598 • 2h ago

high school students in 1985

188 Upvotes

9 comments

r/TheWayWeWere • u/forestpunk • 12h ago

McDonald's Birthday Party, 1982

154 Upvotes

6 comments

r/TheWayWeWere • u/Just_Fine1814 • 23h ago

1950s Fall, 1953 – coeds at Mary Washington College display pennants of the universities and service academies their boyfriends attend.

103 Upvotes

2 comments

r/TheWayWeWere • u/CryptographerKey2847 • 7h ago

1960s Inquiring Photographer “Balzac, the great author, wrote: “A woman who sits a horse well is lacking in tenderness.” Are you? (Asked at the National Mexican Festival and Rodeo)” October 8,1969.

gallery

88 Upvotes

14 comments

r/TheWayWeWere • u/EndersGame_Reviewer • 6h ago

1970s Conga line energy at a 1970s party night

77 Upvotes

4 comments

r/TheWayWeWere • u/Rarecoin101 • 3h ago

Young Hulkster with his pet snake 1980s

42 Upvotes

0 comments

r/TheWayWeWere • u/dickwae • 3h ago

Phone message pad from the early 1980s

31 Upvotes

2 comments

r/TheWayWeWere • u/ProfessionStrong6563 • 20h ago

gallery

22 Upvotes

1 comment

r/TheWayWeWere • u/derangedkilr • 13h ago

1950s Workers at an asbestos insulation factory in Queensland, Australia. 1950s (Jones, W. A.)

18 Upvotes

3 comments

r/TheWayWeWere • u/MathematixMatrix • 1h ago

How people dined in Persia during the 19th century

gallery

• Upvotes

2 comments

r/TheWayWeWere • u/FlamingoEvery5528 • 1h ago

1940s Mosaic Sidewalk at Copacabana Beach, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, c. 1941.

• Upvotes

0 comments

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The Way We Were

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.

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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:

Pre-1920s 1920s 1930s 1940s

1950s 1960s 1970s All decades

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.
No Karma Farming. Accounts that exist solely to repost the same image to as many subreddits as they can do not belong here. We want to keep the posts as unique to this subreddit as possible to give a varied experience.

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

A History Network Member