Do you love to look through old photographs? You’re not alone! Plenty of people spend hours perusing vintage photos from times past. If you’re one of those people, you’ve come to the right place. Today, we’re diving into retro photographs that might seem mundane on the surface but are actually fascinating reflections of decades past. Photos of everyday people can show us the way things were without the glitz and glam of historical events and celebrity portraits. People just like us have lived through unprecedented times in the past, which is both nostalgic and relatable. Here is a hand-picked selection of fascinating photographs to remind you that history is pretty cool, after all.
#1: Pop Quiz, Circa 1953
This photo is extremely random, but it reveals more than meets the eye. This 1953 photo was taken by photographer Eliot Elisofon, a photojournalist and documentary photographer. During a visit to a high school in Leslie County, Kentucky, he apparently asked the girls in this class a question that probably wouldn’t fly today.
He asked the girls how many babies they wanted when they got older and started a family. As we can see, every girl had an answer at the ready. This kind of question was way more common back in the 1950s when job opportunities were more limited for women. It was a societal norm for women to get married and have kids, which isn’t quite the norm today. The answers in a modern-day classroom would most likely look very different!