“Your Mirror To The 20th Century”: 30 Pics Of How Much Or Little Life Has Changed Since

Pictures have the ability to capture a moment in time that can be revered many years later. Whether moving or still, they hold our attention better than probably any other medium of art. In this digital age, almost anyone can become a photographer. Yet old photos hold a one-of-a-kind aura – a unique imprint of that time, if you will.Instagram pageRocaHistoryis where vintage pop culture meets history’s photographic curiosities. It has everything: from fascinatingmoments from the archives of historytobehind-the-scenes snippets of Old Hollywood. So check out these pictures from RocaHistory to perhaps see what you’ve never seen before, and read our interview with photographerMargaret Sartorbelow.This post may includeaffiliate links.

Instagram pageRocaHistoryis where vintage pop culture meets history’s photographic curiosities. It has everything: from fascinatingmoments from the archives of historytobehind-the-scenes snippets of Old Hollywood. So check out these pictures from RocaHistory to perhaps see what you’ve never seen before, and read our interview with photographerMargaret Sartorbelow.

This post may includeaffiliate links.

A Couple At Woodstock (48 Hours After They Met) And The Same Couple 50 Years Later

On the other hand, moments of the past are not the only thing old photos can reflect. They may trigger us to reevaluate what we know. “Some historical photographs have the power to subvert familiar narratives and carry with them the possibility of expanding or upending our understanding of our own history,” Margaret says.

In 1922, Scientists Entered A Ward Of Dying Children, All In Comatose Diabetic Ketoacidosis, And Injected A New Drug (Insulin) Into Them As Families Were Already Beginning To Grieve

In 1976, he had just completed a 26 km (16 mile) run when he heard a loud crash. A trolleybus had lost control and had fallen into a reservoir. It was 25 meters (82 ft) off-shore and had sunk to a depth of 10 meters (33 ft).⁣⁣⁣⁣Karapetyan immediately dived into the sewage-infested waters and managed to kick the back window of the trolleybus with his legs, despite zero visibility from the silt that had risen from the bottom. Of the 92 passengers onboard, Karapetyan pulled out 46 people. 20 of whom survived.⁣⁣⁣⁣The combination of cold water and the multiple lacerations from glass shards led him to be hospitalized for 45 days. He developed pneumonia and sepsis. While he was able to recover, damage to his lungs prevented him from continuing his career as a swimmer.⁣⁣⁣⁣"I knew that I could only save so many lives, I was afraid to make a mistake. It was so dark down there that I could barely see anything. One of my dives, I accidentally grabbed a seat instead of a passenger. I could have saved a life instead. That seat still haunts me in my nightmares," he said.⁣⁣⁣⁣In 1985, Karapetyan came upon a burning building with trapped people inside. He rushed in and began pulling people out. He was badly burnt and had to once again be hospitalized.⁣⁣⁣⁣Later in life, he moved to Moscow and founded a shoe company called “Second Breath”. He is still alive today and continues to run his business.

This Is Shavarsh Karapetyan, A Retired Armenian Swimmer

Margaret personally is very interested in a unique way of developing photographs that was used in the 20th century – using glass plates. “These glass plates are now over a century old and have, themselves, lived a history,” she explains the fascination.

Everyone You Meet Always Asks If You Have A Career, Are Married Or Own A House; As If Life Was Some Kind Of Grocery List. But Nobody Ever Asks If You Are Happy. - Heath Ledger

It’s disputed but newspapers at the time said this made him the first male cheerleader in NFL historyThe gag was for his hit show “Mork and Mindy.” They filmed during a real game, one which the Broncos won 45-10 (sorry, Patriots fans)The iconic Broncos cheerleading crew the “Pony Express” welcomed him as one of their own, and he participated in cheers throughout the game

Robin Williams Dressing Up As A Denver Broncos Cheerleader, 1979

Freddie Mercury Said To Mary Austin In His Will: “If Things Had Been Different You Would Have Been My Wife, And This Would Have Been Yours Anyway.” (1984)

Marlene Dietrich Is Detained At A Train Station In Paris In 1933 For Violating The Ban On Women Wearing Trousers

Not long after this photo was taken, children of Japanese ancestry (including the pictured boy) were imprisoned with their parents to spend the duration of World War II in internment camps

A Little Boy Hugging His Best Friend During Lunchtime At Raphael Weill Public School In San Francisco, California In 1942

A Mother And Her Son On Their Way To A Pride Walk, 1985

For those who want to be moved or inspired, Margaret recommends the photography of Hugh Mangum, a portraitist who worked in the American South at the turn of the 20th century.“His eloquent portraits depicting people from a wide range of racial and economic backgrounds are a surprising and unparalleled document of a very turbulent time in our history,” Margaret tells us. She says that these antique images surprise her with their artistic freshness: “their sometimes disquieting fragility aligns with how it feels to live in the world today.”

For those who want to be moved or inspired, Margaret recommends the photography of Hugh Mangum, a portraitist who worked in the American South at the turn of the 20th century.

“His eloquent portraits depicting people from a wide range of racial and economic backgrounds are a surprising and unparalleled document of a very turbulent time in our history,” Margaret tells us. She says that these antique images surprise her with their artistic freshness: “their sometimes disquieting fragility aligns with how it feels to live in the world today.”

A Young Peter Dinklage With Grown-Out Hair, 1980s

Italian Summer, 1980s

She also had a pet snake named Emily Spinach who she would wrap around on one arm and take to parties.Alice was extremely independent and unlike many women of her time, she was known to wear pants, drive cars, smoke cigarettes, place bets with bookies, dance on rooftops, and party all night. In a span of 15 months, she managed to attend 300 parties, 350 balls and 407 dinners.A friend of Alice’s stepmom once remarked that she was “like a young wild animal that had been put into good clothes.” Her stepmom went a step further and described her as a “guttersnipe” that went “uncontrolled with every boy in town.”William Howard Taft banned her from the White House after Alice buried a voodoo doll (of Taft’s wife) in the front yard. Woodrow Wilson also banned her after she told a very dirty joke (sadly no record of the joke exists) about him in public.Her father, Theodore Roosevelt famously said, “I can either run the country or I can attend to Alice, but I cannot possibly do both.”Alice once told President Lyndon B. Johnson that she specifically wore wide-brimmed hats around him so that he could not kiss her.During an interview in 1974, Alice described herself as a “hedonist.”She died in 1980 at the age of 96

This Is 18-Year-Old Alice Roosevelt And Her Long-Haired Chihuahua Named Leo In 1902

Although Margaret Sartor teaches at Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies, she’s not snobbish when it comes to the art of photography. “Anyone could be a photographer, just like anyone can draw or write a sentence if they can hold a pencil; the camera is simply a machine, a tool, a medium,” she believes.

Mother Holding Her Daughter At A Budapest Market In 1987. 30 Years Later, They Recreated The Photo. The Photographer Is Atilla Manek. The Subjects Are His Wife And Daughter

She fell 2 miles to the ground, strapped to her seat and survived after she endured 10 days in the Amazon Jungle.After ten days, she found a boat moored near a shelter, and found the boat’s fuel tank still partly full. Koepcke poured the gasoline on her wounds, an action which succeeded in removing the maggots from her arm. Out of 93 passengers and crew, Juliane was the only survivor of the LANSA flight 508 crash that took place December 24th, 1971

17 Year-Old Juliane Koepcke Was Sucked Out Of An Airplane In 1971 After It Was Struck By A Bolt Of Lightning

Ducklings Being Used As Part Of Medical Therapy In 1956

Sartor claims that like in any other medium, the mind is the most important thing. “A photographer, in any era, is someone who chooses to use the camera as a way to explore or discover something about the world or their place in it,” she explains. You can capture an authentic moment even with an iPhone – it’s the idea behind it, the feeling that it gives the viewer that matters.

In this photo, Mary Smith earned six pence a week using a pea shooter to shoot dried peas at the windows of sleeping workers in East London, 1930s. She would not leave a window until she was sure that the workers had woken up

A Knocker-Upper Was Someone Whose Sole Purpose Was To Wake People Up During A Time When Alarm Clocks Were Expensive And Not Very Reliable

A Young Man Demonstrating Against Low Pay For Teachers, 1930s

Cher, 1974

“Photographs are not the truth, but they can lead us toward it,” Margaret gives a quick rundown of the meaning of pictures as a whole. “As human beings and citizens, we are constantly trying to see ourselves and our ever-changing, often conflicted world as clearly as we can—hoping it matters, hoping we matter, wondering what happens next.““The magic of photography is that photographs move us in ways we can neither control nor can we fully explain and in that sense they remind us that ordinary life is suffused with mysteries.”

“The magic of photography is that photographs move us in ways we can neither control nor can we fully explain and in that sense they remind us that ordinary life is suffused with mysteries.”

Not Everyone Likes Bikini, Miami Beach, 1980s

Office Life Before The Invention Of Autocad And Other Drafting Softwares

A Woman Dressed Up As Batgirl In 1904, 35 Years Before The Creation Of Batman (1939) And 57 Years Before The Creation Of Batgirl (1961)

Jonathan Jones writes for The Guardianthat our fascination with old photographs stems from their ability to be both dated and immediate. “Every photo captures the light of a unique moment, a time and place dateable to the instant the shutter opened. So as soon as it is taken it starts to slip away in time – a perfectly preserved microcosm of a vanished universe,” Jones writes.

Vintage Halloween Costumes

Packed in shoulder to shoulder, roughly 300,000 participated in the walk across the bridge. The weight of the crowd caused the suspension to sagMany of those on the bridge thought it would collapse. Some threw bicycles and strollers into the water to help lighten the loadOne man recounted years later, “I remember discussing with my wife the real possibility that we were about to participate in one of the 20th century’s landmark disasters. A bridge collapse would have put to shame all those petty Third World bus and ferry tragedies you read about in the newspaper”Despite the flattening of the roadbed, bridge engineers said there was never any real dangerNeedless to say, bridge officials did not allow uncontrolled pedestrian access for the 75th anniversary in 2012

In May 1987, An Estimated 800,000 People Gathered For The 50th Anniversary Of The Golden Gate Bridge. Event Organizers Had Expected A Crowd Of 80,000

Meryl Streep In The New York Shakespeare Festival’s Production Of The Taming Of The Shrew (1978)

The Instagram page RocaHistory has its bit of claim to fame on social media. It wasone of Kendal Jenner’s favorite Instagram accountswhen it still ran under the name LostinHistoryPics. Now it has 1.3 followers that tune in daily for some interesting facts and images from the recent past.

Woman And A Tornado, 1989

Miss World 1994, Aishwarya Rai Alongside Her Mother Having Lunch With Her Miss World Crown On

Three Young Women Eat Spaghetti On Inflatable Mattresses At Island Of Capri, 1939

Although it has been rebranded, the page still features lots of stylish pictures not only of celebrities in the past. Old photographs of regular people get similar attention as well. People find them especially intriguing if they have an interesting story behind them or feature some aesthetically pleasing visuals.

A Local Theater Producer In Colombia Changed Shakira’s Life