35 Striking Vintage Photos That Show What Daily Life Looked Like a Century Ago

By 121clicks
September 24, 2025

Step back in time and witness the world as it was a century ago through a captivating collection of vintage photographs. The early 1900s were a period of immense change, bridging the gap between the horse-drawn era and the dawn of the modern age. These 35 striking photos offer a unique window into the daily lives of people across the globe, revealing a world that is both familiar and profoundly different from our own.

Unlike staged portraits, these images capture candid moments of everyday life. You’ll see children playing with simple, handcrafted toys on unpaved streets, while their parents navigate a world without smartphones, constant digital connectivity, or the conveniences we now take for granted. The fashion is a story in itself, with men in bowler hats and tailored suits and women in long dresses and elaborate hats, even for a simple trip to the market.

Beyond the fashion, these photographs showcase a different pace of life. Public transport was a mix of streetcars and early automobiles, but horse-drawn carriages were still a common sight. The photos also reveal the rise of new technologies, like the first telephones and gramophones, which were transforming how people communicated and entertained themselves. They show people at work in factories and fields, their faces etched with the hard labor of the time.

This collection is a poignant reminder of our collective past and a powerful testament to the resilience and resourcefulness of a generation that built the foundation of the world we live in today. These images are not just historical artifacts; they are windows into the human experience, reminding us that while the tools of daily life may change, the fundamental joys and struggles of humanity remain timeless.

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35 Striking Vintage Photos That Show What Daily Life Looked Like a Century Ago

#1. A vertical parking lot in New York, 1920s

#2. One the first version of armed vehicles was the Motor Scout. It is the first armed petrol powered vehicle, created by F.R. Simms from Britain in the late 1890s.

#3. Coal worker having his lunch, Oak Ridge Tennessee 1945.

#4. Two girls shopping for their mothers on stilts in Sidcup, England. Stilt-walking was a popular pastime for children in the 1950s.

#5. A young artist paints Sacré-Coeur, Paris, 1946.

#6. In 1942, 19-year-old Lydia Martinez operated a massive hydro press generating up to 4,500 tons of pressure at a Consolidated Aircraft factory in California.

#7. A soldier from the 1st Polish Armoured Division letting a Dutch girl ride on his BSA M20 motorcycle during the liberation of Breda, The Netherlands. October 1944

#8. A farmer’s daughter and her cat at the family kitchen in San Antonio, Texas, 1939.

#9. Teenagers and their car in the 1950s.

#10. "Aerotrain" by General Motors, 1956

#11. This newsie started every day at 3am and then went to school. Texas, 1913. Photo by Lewis Hine (Library of Congress)

#12. A West German man boosted up his son to give him a view of the other side of the Berlin Wall.

#13. A woman from Bagnara carrying a swordfish on her head Calabria, Italy, 1945

#14. Gus’ Cafe in Waco, Texas, 1939.

#15. A salesman has his motorized roller skates refueled at a gas station (1961).

#16. Workers buildings radios at Emerson. (1945)

#17. A youngster watching at home on a pay television in 1963. A slot meter on the right allows him to insert a sixpence coin for an hour of viewing.

#18. Office life before the invention of AutoCAD and other drafting softwares (photo from 1960s).

#19. A multitasking mother ironing clothes while watching television, a common way to pass the time during household chores, 1950s.

#20. Armorer working on one of the .50 cal Browning machine guns in the ball turret of a B-17 Flying Fortress.

#21. San Francisco diner featuring the Buckley Music System "Music Box" at the lunch counter. c. 1941 The remote unit allowed patrons to select songs from a nearby jukebox.

#22. The Statue of Liberty as it arrived in New York City in 1885

#23. Marilyn Monroe and Cary Grant in "Monkey Business" (1952)

#24. American Airlines stewardesses in the 1950s.

#25. Auditions for the part of the black cat in Tales of Terror (1961)

#26. A child with polio learning to walk inside parallel bars (around the time physical therapy was born). Polio Rehabilitation Center Sudbury General Hospital, Canada, 1953.

#27. Students happily leaving school, some without shoes in Dunklin County, Missouri, 1942.

#28. A man taking a roadworthiness test in Hungary in the 1980s.

#29. As the father of a sharecropper family working a six-acre farm in 1939, this 69-year-old Person County man sat on his porch and said, “Land is like folks. It gets tired and needs a rest.”

#30. Victorian women sharing a trike, 1900s.

#31. Workers installing a Greek Revival architectural column on the Civil Courts building in St. Louis, Missouri, 1928. (Photo by W.C. Runder).

#32. A woman protesting wealth inequality in North Carolina, circa 1930s

#33. These two stylish gents pondered life after leaving Cambridge University (1926).

#34. Kids with the "Three-Eyed TV Monster", which permitted simultaneous three-screen viewing in Chicago, Illinois, 1961.

#35. The Dutchiest father of all time, 1966. (The Netherlands).

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