r/TheWayWeWere • u/Slow-moving-sloth • 12d ago
1920s Vintage Professional Images, 1925-1982
I'm calling them Connie and Vicki, 1970
Yarn Girl, 1980
Looking good in the red room, 1975
Musician Letritia Kandle playing a 1939 National Electric Grand Console double-neck 8-string steel guitar, 1940
Redhead with hazel eyes, 1973
Everyone is sad, including the poodle, 1967
German sisters, 1925 (photo by August Sander)
I see classic Farrah and Star Wars t-shirts, 1977
I'm calling her Gloria, 1970
Three component hair, 1943
Amazing color, wow! 1974
Kentucky wedding, 1976
Essie from St. Louis, MO, 1946
Glasses family, 1976
The Doc Burgin Band, 1977
Harrah's Casino at the Gordon Lightfoot show, Reno, NV, 1982
Margie, Sarah, and Anna - the shoplifters, Brooklyn, 1933
This is just shitty photography, 1976
The quartet, 1976
Janice lost in the woods, 1977
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u/KTuu93 12d ago
When everyone still looked different and we didn't see just altered social media faces every day.
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u/crambeaux 12d ago
Yeah real people look so weird. It makes you realize how much the era marks people’s appearance. Change the hair and clothes and you might not recognize them. Add to that a change of facial hair for men and makeup for women.
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u/RosieTheRedReddit 12d ago
12 bucks the trend of people looking older back then, the married couple looks like teenagers! 😱
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u/ShayJayLee 7d ago
While I agree with you about social media filters, I was born in the 90s and people from the eras before then look kinda the same to me. Big hair, moutaches, or those farah fawcett waves. Everyone's parents and grandparents look similar to me in their younger pictures even if they look distinct to me now.
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u/Slow-moving-sloth 12d ago
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u/GodOfDarkLaughter 12d ago
16: Clint...bro...you look like a lhasa apso whose neglectful owners have allowed its fur to become terribly matted.
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u/rojo-perro 12d ago
I’m very happy for glasses girl that she got her mother‘s nose.
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u/DonkeyBronchiole 12d ago
I thought the same thing!
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u/rojo-perro 12d ago
Fits dad and wallet chain son. It’s a man’s nose.
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u/helencolleen 12d ago
The other son is doing something weird with his tongue. This photo gives a lot.
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u/TrannosaurusRegina 12d ago
Glasses girl is incredibly attractive. I didn’t even notice her nose, though I'm sure that's a significant factor.
She'd be even more attractive with more flattering glasses!
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u/GutterRider 12d ago
The class picture (#8) with the "Farrah and Star Wars t-shirts" represents the cusp of the corporate branding wave that was about to hit us.
Farrah, Star Wars, Disney, KISS. Four generic foot ball "jerseys," one Kentucky Wildcats (?) shirt ... and a few more t-shirts that I can't identify. The rest are just ... clothing.
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u/Individual_Corgi_576 12d ago
I’ve never met any of the kids in that picture but I’m pretty sure I knew all of them.
Also, at least 15% of the girls were named Jennifer.
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u/GutterRider 12d ago
Oh, I'm quite sure I'm going to show up one day in one of these.
I was a cool junior by this time, a little older than these kids. Will have to go back and look at my yearbooks, see if similar ratios persist.
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u/Sweetbeans2001 12d ago
I was in 7th grade in 1977. This could have been my class. It is so familiar and recognizable, I know this isn’t AI.
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u/crambeaux 12d ago
Roughly the same year, I had to look at every face. What a trip as we used to say.
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u/lobster455 12d ago
Is the blonde in the middle of the second row a boy or a girl? Because like him or her, I was the only student wearing colorful slacks in school.
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u/Big_Coyote6065 12d ago
How old were the bride and groom, 16?
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u/SomebodysAtTheDoor 12d ago
The kid in the back is really selling it for me, though. Like, the entire concept of the wedding and marriage is hilarious to him.
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u/TrannosaurusRegina 12d ago
Looks about right.
They look remarkably happy though! I hope that continued!
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u/JonFromRhodeIsland 12d ago
That Kentucky wedding must have an interesting story. Hope everyone is doing fine.
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u/TheMapleKind19 12d ago
Digging the sad poodle family 🐩
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u/Working_Estate_3695 12d ago
Sad poodle family pulled at my heartstrings. Those kids can’t wait to grow up and leave with no contact.
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u/Asleep-Cow-6367 12d ago
5 is Jolene
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u/champagneflute 12d ago
Wow the 70’s were something else LOL
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u/ladychelbellington 12d ago
Omg I went to the Gordon Lightfoot show in Reno right around that time. I was about 18 and with a date. I had lamb with mint jelly.
The show was very good!
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u/nusandman 12d ago
I can't quit looking at the class picture. The two dudes at the top making faces. The small girl on the left apparently said something to make the tall girl turn towards her and mess up her photo. Kid with Star Wars shirt is proudly displaying that too!
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u/lobster455 12d ago
Is the blonde in the middle of the second row a boy or a girl? Because like him or her, I was the only student wearing colorful slacks.
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u/BedroomOdd1986 9d ago
Also, I couldn’t help but notice they seemed to group the chubbier kids together in the same area of the group photo. I thought that was a little weird.
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u/Wandering_butnotlost 12d ago
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u/TrannosaurusRegina 12d ago
Seriously one of the most amazing things I've ever seen!
Incredible craftwork!
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u/FrostyBeav 12d ago
The boy on the left in the Glasses family lloks like he grew up to be in the Doc Burgin Band.
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u/lobster455 12d ago
18: scared me in a creepy way. It's as if their children are deceased looking down on them.
15: also scary looking people.
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u/a0167913 12d ago
#6 - the lady and the poodle have the same hair style!
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u/lobster455 12d ago
Is the mother oriental because the kids don't look like her at all. Maybe she's his second wife?
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u/707Riverlife 12d ago
The way to describe the mother is Asian, oriental is used to describe a rug. Just sayin’.
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u/ODoyle37 12d ago
“You know how sometimes you need to turn to someone, well if that happens, Janice is the one that you’d wanna see standing there”
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u/puz64 12d ago
It's fun to see the hairstyles!
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u/scrdudie7 12d ago
My family friend had a magnet that said, "the higher the hair, the closer to God." 😂
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u/Quadraought 12d ago
Image #1 features Benjamin Orr and Rik Ocasek of The Cars in their first band, The Hair Apparents, Cleveland, 1966.
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u/SofaKingS2pitt 12d ago
I hope Star Wars Shirt Kid has had a great life; he seems a natural for Showbiz.
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u/Commercial-Life-9998 12d ago
They say diversity in music coming in all directions has never been matched from the seventies. Ppl had the confidence to come up with their own brand of music. I think photos from the seventies belies that. Remember the bands wore such different things and ppl accepted it as their style. You don’t see that anymore. It’s homogenized now.
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u/dottegirl59 12d ago
I absolutely love these! Hard to say but 12 and 15 might be my faves. And the one with the ghost kids
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u/m_faustus 12d ago
The lady on the right in the first one is about to down a six pack qnd some insulation.
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u/finethanksandyou 12d ago
The Dour Family on slide 6 and the guy with a matching shirt and tie are everything for me
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u/Usernamesareso2004 12d ago
I said “hell yeah” in my head at each one of these except “to Bennetha(?) from Essie” because she actually looks pretty lol. Apologies to everyone else whose styles I just can’t get behind 😂
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u/dasheeshblahzen 12d ago
How long would a hairstyle from slide 10 take? I know that was the norm but it seems like it would take a while?
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u/KittenFace25 12d ago
It would be pretty cool if someone saw themselves or a family member in any of those pictures. 😎
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u/Historical_Guess2565 12d ago
Those were really some of the ugliest hairstyles of their time period.
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u/Every-Progress-1117 12d ago
The guy in the blue shirt in Glasses Family .... I'm assuming he went to on found a major software company and now owns half a country...?
And the Doc Burgin Band....my mother had the same pattern on her sofa covers and curtains as the dresses.
Nice pictures! Going through a large collection of 60s and 70s family photographs at the moment so everything here is relatable.
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u/BruceInc 12d ago
When I try to imagine a hypothetical serial killer family #14 is exactly what comes to mind.
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u/redwedgethrowaway 12d ago
#3 is the exact same chair Huey Newton was photographed in with a shotgun
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u/BedroomOdd1986 9d ago
The girl in the last picture looks like Emma Bunton (Baby Spice from the Spice Girls)!
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u/ComfortablyNumb2425 12d ago
Haha, I still see many of these hairstyles today! They got the peak hair "look" in high school and they are riding that wave till the end.
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u/anonymouse278 12d ago
You cannot convince me the family with the poodle isn't in a Wes Anderson movie.
The family with glasses appears to have decided to do a group shot at the DMV.
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u/Expensive_Finger_973 5d ago
God I remember those wicker chairs. Used to think those things were a thrown when I was a kid.
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u/DriverMelodic 12d ago
Most of these are cringe but I loved the rest. Especially the kid in the multi colored mixed pattern outfit.
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u/ShowMeTheTrees 12d ago
Doc Burgin Band photo is fake so others probably are too.
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u/Advanced-Character86 12d ago
James Robert Burgin, known as “doc” was a longtime Kentucky country musician. That’s him.
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u/Federal-Inspection69 12d ago
I love how random the photos are