Medical sciences in the early parts of the 20th century were far advanced from the medieval days of leeches, but still, most of the treatments and medical devices were misguided and often even barbaric by our modern standards. Seeming to mean well, biza…
Man-lifting kites are specially designed kites that can lift humans. Back in the day, when airplanes and helicopters were pure fantasy, these man-lifting kites were the closest that humans could get to their dream of flying. Originally, the kites were used …
At the beginning of the 1900s, leisure travel in general was something experienced exclusively by the wealthy and elite population. In the early-to-mid-20th century, trains were steadily a popular way to get around. Through these vintage photos, we can s…
In the next few decades after Wright brothers' first flight, women aviators became increasingly common and attracted an increasing amount of attention, culminating with Amelia Earhart's flights in the 1920s and 1930s. With Earhart's death in 1937, women avi…
The American presidency has put 45 men in power who have been described as everything from noble to despicable. They are known for the wars they fought, the legislation they signed into law, and the scandals they brought to the Oval Office. These interest…
A boom in New York’s population in the mid-to-late 1800s led to the rise of tenement housing in lower Manhattan. Tenements were low-rise buildings with multiple apartments, which were narrow and typically made up of three rooms. Because rents were low, te…
These fascinating black and white pictures show the hop picker families of Kent from the early 1900s. Before mechanization hop-picking was a hugely labor-intensive process. Consequently, farmers needed extra workers. This help came in the form of families, …
In this collection, we will dive into vintage advertisements and take a look at car advertisements between the 1900s and 1950s. The very first and simple car ads were a sign of times that emphasized the fact that cars were the ultimate luxury. The first…
Deauville is regarded as the "queen of the Norman beaches" and one of the most prestigious seaside resorts in all of France. As the closest seaside resort to Paris, the city and its region of the Côte Fleurie (Flowery Coast) has long been home to French hig…
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, farms started to use new machinery and fertilizers that transformed them from small-scale enterprises into food factories. Entrepreneurs selling products designed to increase a farmer’s production were anxious …
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…
During the rule of Queen Victoria (1837 1901), the British shipbuilding industry experienced great strides. Especially after the Industrial Revolution, wooden shipbuilding techniques which had lasted for millennia were radically changed with the introduct…
Photographer Nils Olsson Reppen was born in 1856 on the farm Reppen in Sogndal in western Norway. In 1882, he immigrated to America and worked as a photographer in Browns Valley and Morris in Minnesota. He returned to Norway in the late 1890s and contin…
When the Irish talk about the “Land War,” they have in mind either three phases of anti-landlord agitation in the late nineteenth century, or, more narrowly, the first of these phases, which lasted from 1879 until 1882. The movement emerged during a sev…
This collection of hand-tinted lantern slides depicts popular tourist destinations in Norway around the turn of the 19th century. The collection consists of slides produced by at least two British photographers – professional photographer Samuel J. Beck…
Tucked away among the canyons and mountainous terrain in southern Jordan, the city of Petra has stood for well over 2,500 years. In that time, Petra has gone from an early settlement to a crucial and wealthy trading hub in the region, and then to a forg…
The Maya people have been called many names over the years, such as “the mysterious Maya” and “the magnificent Maya,” and many scholarly books have been written about this ancient Mesoamerican civilization. Many years before European explorers came to t…
The samurai were a class of people who served the aristocracy with arms. The word first appeared in a document of the Heian period; before that time such people had been called mono-no-fu or bushi. Mono means ‘thing’ and fu means ‘man’; that is, men who dea…
The process that led up to the national park idea is complex. From arts and literature came the Romantic movement, which encouraged the experience of the mountains and wilderness. Authors like Henry Davia Thoreau and Washington Irving exhorted Americans…
By the late eighteenth century, Egypt had been reduced to nothing more than an impoverished and neglected corner of the Ottoman Empire, crippled by endless power struggles among its Mamluk leadership. Then in 1798, Napoleon arrived at the head of a Fren…