William Bullard, born in Worcester, Massachusetts, worked as a photographer without a studio, visiting clients around the town with his camera strapped to his bicycle. From 1897 to 1917, Bullard, who was white, took portraits of his predominantly black …
With the birth of Émilie, Yvonne, Cécile, Marie, and Annette Dionne in 1934, the province of Ontario, coupled with Canada, discovered a “human goldmine”. From the moment the Quints were born, they were subjected to awful living standards and were abused by …
These pictures taken by John Frank Keith depict working-class Philadelphians, individually, and as groups standing on sidewalks, in front of streetscape, and sitting on stoops. Most of his photographs did not identify the subjects. Despite his day job as …
These photos, taken from a book on phrenology, are packed with strange theories and a whole host of strange illustrations. Published by Chicago phrenologist L.A. Vaught in 1902, the book lays out the 42 known elements of human nature (including Acquisitiven…
Advertising has always been an interesting way to trace how modern society has evolved. At the core, the marketing campaigns are based on what people want and what appeals to them. When you judge human history based on old advertisements, the past will …
Television was introduced to Americans in 1939 and began to gain a foothold after the Second World War. In the 1950s, the sale of TV sets and the boom in programming made TV America's favorite source of entertainment. In 1950, just under 20 percent of A…
Victorian mourning jewelry was popular during the late 1800s and was used as a tribute or memento to remind the wearer about their love for the person they had lost. Death was a regular occurrence in Victorian times, thanks to pervasive diseases like ch…
From the early 1950s until the 1970s, sugar was marketed as a healthy substance that would help curb hunger and provide an energy boost. A “pro-sugar” ad that appeared in an August 1964 issue of Time gave a “note to mothers,” explaining that drinks without …
Mummy portraits have been found across Egypt, but are most common in the Fayum Basin, particularly from Hawara in the Faiyum Basin and the Hadrianic Roman city Antinoopolis. "Fayum portraits" is generally used as a stylistic, rather than a geographic, d…
Here's a weird relic from the past: a 1979 calendar dedicated to cocaine. Yes, you read it correctly, to cocaine. While the substance was illegal, it wasn’t considered all that bad (and it was normal to advertise cocaine gadgets in magazines). Each month…
From the 1960s to the late 1980s, New York City’s iconic Times Square was a difficult place to be. Felony and crime rates were high, despite heightened police existence. A plethora of go-go bars, sex shops, peep show establishments, and adult theaters becam…
In 1942, twenty-one-year-old Esther Bubley, accepted a position with the Office of War Information (OWI) in Washington, D.C. to work as a darkroom lab technician. The OWI had recently absorbed the Farm Security Administration (FSA) and their stable of l…
These posters were published in the Soviet anti-religious magazine, Bezbozhnik (“The Godless”) from 1922 to 1941. The main purpose of the magazine was to thwart any religious beliefs that were supposedly too distracting for the working class. The magazi…
These photographs, taken by the Lomen family, capture the indigenous Yupik Eskimo and the prospectors of the Gold Rush in Alaska during the early decades of the 20th century. The term "Eskimo" is used in Alaska to refer to arctic Alaskans including Inup…
Dorothy Counts made national news in September 1957, when at the age of 15, she became one of the first and, at the time, the only black student to enroll in the newly desegregated Harry Harding High School in Charlotte (North Carolina). This came nearl…
On the last two days in April 1975, Operation Frequent Wind, the evacuation of Vietnam, ended a twenty-year agony for the United States. A trial for America was done. The last 45 days of her presence in South Vietnam may seem almost insignificant compared t…
The Victorian Era may not have been the start of the institutionalization of patients with mental health problems, but it was certainly a period when the number of asylums and patients treated within them, exploded. Whether this rise was mainly due to a…
During the Second World War, Londoners of all classes flocked to Underground platforms to keep themselves safe from the destruction that was being wrought above the ground by the German bombers. The Blitz refers to the strategic bombing campaign conducted b…
In 1907, Joseph “Alligator Joe” Campbell and Francis Victor Earnest Sr. relocated an alligator farm in Hot Springs, Arkansas, to a Los Angeles location adjacent to the Selig Zoo and Motion Picture Studio in Los Angeles. The Alligator farm rented reptiles to th…
William Patrick Stuart-Houston (né Hitler), son of Alois Hitler Jr, was the half-nephew of Adolf Hitler. He was born in the Toxteth area of Liverpool, England, in 1911, in a house that was, ironically, later destroyed in a German air raid. Alois Hitler …