r/TheWayWeWere • u/delphicginger • 15h ago

My nan with her husband and friends in 1984. Second photo is today (Aged 99)

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6.8k Upvotes

My wonderful nan - somewhat convinced she may be a vampire as she never ages!☺️

204 comments

r/TheWayWeWere • u/Mentalfloss1 • 8h ago

1970s Me as hippie about 1975

530 Upvotes

In the Everglades

37 comments

r/TheWayWeWere • u/KatyaRomici00 • 11h ago

Pre-1920s Photograph of a little girl, Montreal, Quebec, 1896-1898

755 Upvotes

https://collections.musee-mccord-stewart.ca/en/objects/419498/portrait-dune-fille-non-identifiee-montreal-quebec-1896?

13 comments

r/TheWayWeWere • u/dittidot • 13h ago

1960s My dad making us laugh while taking a family photo, 1961

1.0k Upvotes

9 comments

r/TheWayWeWere • u/Mentalfloss1 • 5h ago

1950s My cousin Jonny and me in 1952

203 Upvotes

Jonny is the girl, btw.

2 comments

r/TheWayWeWere • u/Electrical-Aspect-13 • 7h ago

1940s Group of friends at the beach in Florida, 1940s.

141 Upvotes

1 comment

r/TheWayWeWere • u/Electrical-Aspect-13 • 11h ago

1940s Young war couple poses for their photo, Pennsylvania, 1940s.

183 Upvotes

4 comments

r/TheWayWeWere • u/SOMOEAGLE • 1h ago

1940s My grandpa and his 1941 Buick

• Upvotes

Photo was taken in 1948

0 comments

r/TheWayWeWere • u/Zocimir • 6h ago

1970s My grandmother's uncle Jovan-Jovo Bilić with his gusle (Serbian traditional instrument) (1977). He won the national festival in Bosnia and Herzegovina that year.

46 Upvotes

1 comment

r/TheWayWeWere • u/the_dumbblonde • 5h ago

1940s My great-grandmother and friends in the 1940 Atlanta snow-storm

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24 Upvotes

1 comment

r/TheWayWeWere • u/Mentalfloss1 • 5h ago

1970s On top of Eagle Cap in NE Oregon in 1979

20 Upvotes

I found the new 10 Commandments

5 comments

r/TheWayWeWere • u/StunGod • 1d ago

1960s My parents brought me to visit my grandparents, 1 month old. (1968)

818 Upvotes

20 comments

r/TheWayWeWere • u/AdSpecialist6598 • 16h ago

1970s High school in 1979

110 Upvotes

9 comments

r/TheWayWeWere • u/CryptographerKey2847 • 18h ago

1930s Inquiring Photographer “A man states that his wife concealed the fact that she could not bear children until he had been married to her for a year. Do you think he is entitled to a divorce?”April 11,1936.

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159 Upvotes

62 comments

r/TheWayWeWere • u/Electrical-Aspect-13 • 1d ago

Pre-1920s Girl in wheel chair hugs her baby brother to pose him for their photo together, 1890s.

1.4k Upvotes

12 comments

r/TheWayWeWere • u/Troutshout • 3h ago

1960s Despite this having happened in 1960, my big brother’s a swell guy

5 Upvotes

2 comments

r/TheWayWeWere • u/OtherwiseTackle5219 • 18h ago

Pre-1920s 1900. Enjoying a nice day at the Beach in Blackpool England.

59 Upvotes

0 comments

r/TheWayWeWere • u/evesword • 1d ago

1970s My Family in the Soviet Union, Around 1970

885 Upvotes

44 comments

r/TheWayWeWere • u/SOMOEAGLE • 1d ago

Rest stop during road trip MI - FL 1985

292 Upvotes

Annual roadtrip to Florida during my dad's 'shut down' weeks at GM.

46 comments

r/TheWayWeWere • u/zxcvbn113 • 1d ago

1940s My father fishing in the creek, c. 1943.

1.3k Upvotes

18 comments

r/TheWayWeWere • u/MarylandCat • 1d ago

1950s My 2nd great grandparents with their daughter (my Aunt Sissy) on her 16th birthday. 1950.

75 Upvotes

Aunt Sissy was the best and I loved to hear stories about our family from her! I learned that her parents really were quite the characters!

3 comments

r/TheWayWeWere • u/Electrical-Aspect-13 • 1d ago

Pre-1920s Littlke girl posing with a rifle, using a barrel to prop the arm, Washington, 1900. Glass negative.

185 Upvotes

10 comments

r/TheWayWeWere • u/zxcvbn113 • 1d ago

1970s Remember when stamp collecting was a thing? November 1973

320 Upvotes

33 comments

r/TheWayWeWere • u/AntonioHench1 • 1d ago

1960s In Germany, it was customary in many cities until the 1960s to give gifts to traffic police officers at Christmas

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229 Upvotes

3 comments

r/TheWayWeWere • u/Brownie5993 • 2d ago

My great grama & her sister.

750 Upvotes

Wonderful women ❤️ likely 1940s-1950s.

10 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

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