116 Of The Oldest Color Photos Showing What The World Looked Like 100 Years Ago

When you think of old photos or historical pictures, you naturally think in terms of black and white, but as you can see from these stunning vintage photos from the turn of the 20th century, color pictures have been around for a lot longer than you think.

Before 1907, if you wanted a color photograph, you (well, a professional colorist) basically had to color it using different dyes and pigments. Still, two French brothers called Auguste and Louis Lumière revolutionized all that with a game-changing process that they called the Autochrome Lumière. Using dyed grains of potato starch and light-sensitive emulsion, they could produce color in vintage photography without the need for additional colorization. Despite being difficult to manufacture and somewhat expensive, the process was very popular among amateur photographers. As a result, one of the world's first books of color photography was published using the Autochrome Lumière technique.

The brothers revolutionized the world of color photography until Kodak took things to a whole new level with the invention of Kodachrome film in 1935, a lighter and more convenient alternative that quickly made the Autochrome Lumière obsolete (although its popularity continued in France up until the 1950s). Kodachrome was also eventually overtaken by the rise of digital photography (Kodak stopped manufacturing Kodachrome in 2009), which is now by far the world's most popular way to take pictures. Still, modern advances in photographic technology wouldn't have been possible without the hard work of early pioneers like Auguste and Louis Lumière. Scroll down for a collection of stunning historical photos in color using their groundbreaking technique.