#1 A Photo Of Dame Daphne Sheldrick In 1960, At The Orphan Elephant Sanctuary She Set Up In The 1950s, In The Karen District Of Nairobi, Kenya
#2 A Soldier Of The French Foreign Legion's, During The Algerian War, Rescuing A Baby Donkey Found On The Battlefield. He Or She Was Then Adopted And Named Bambi, July Or August 1958
If you can relate even a little, history classes in school used to put me to sleep and all those dates and endless text were really hard to follow. So to keep myself awake, I’d try to lose myself in the blurry images in my textbook and try to make sense of the past in my own way.
That’s why I always believe that photos are a powerful medium to understand history. They bring moments, places and people to life with such clarity that words alone can’t convey.
#4 A Photo Of Nikolai Machulyak, A Russian Arctic Explorer Feeding A Polar Bear And Her Cubs, Off The Coast Of Chukchi Sea, 1976
#5 A Civil War Veteran In A Photo Surrounded By His Grandchildren, In 1900
Photos also capture emotions of people which makes us relate a bit more to their experiences.
Much of the emotional and visual context would be lost if we had no photographic evidence capturing the horrors of different wars, or the iconic moments like the suffrage movements or civil rights protests.
They highlighted moments of joy, sadness and victory, letting us connect with events on both personal and social levels.
#7 An Mother And Child, Jemez Pueblo, New Mexico, USA, Early 20th Century
#8 A Beaming New Dad Is Pictured Giving His Newborn Child Thumbs-Up From Outside A Window. Soviet Union 1977
Credit: archaeo adventure
#9 A Youngster Practises Her Ballet, On A Rainy Day In Balsall Heath, Birmingham, England, 1968
Some photos also help preserve cultural practices, and can act as primary historical sources when understood with context and caution.
Even everyday life and social norms from the past are preserved thanks to portraits and images from our history.
Street scenes that show the fashion of the time, or the early Victorians who were the first generation to see themselves through the camera lens — some pictures show social classes and living conditions from the past that we refer to even today.
#10 A Photo Of Stunned And Disoriented Birds, During The Total Solar Eclipse, Taken In Chiapas, Mexico, July 1991
#11 A Brave Little 3-Year-Old, Eileen Dunne, Sits In Bed With Her Doll At Great Ormond Street Hospital, After Being Injured During An Air Raid On London, During The Blitz Of London By The Luftwaffe, In September, 1940
#12 The Last Man Is Taken Off A Shipwrecked Trawler, Off The Coast Of Southern England, 1962
Several pictures here show everyday life that can help us understand the social norms from the past — be it the fashion of the time, the way people worked or how they spent their free time.
Some pictures reveal the social classes and living conditions from the past which historians still refer to today.
For example, experts study studio portraits of wealthy families from the Victorian era and compare them with street scenes of the poor, to understand the stark differences in clothing, housing, and lifestyle at that time.
#13 The World’s Oldest Surviving Toy, Dating Back To The Chalcolithic Period Around 5500-3000 Bc, Is Exhibited At The Mardin Museum, Turkey
#14 Nothing A Cup Of Tea Won’t Make More Bearable: Blitz London, June 1940
While clicking away on their cameras, photographers do much more than just document memories. They capture stories that future generations might one day study.
“We capture images that will someday become part of history in some small way. Whether we mean to or not, as photographers, we become historians as well,” photographer Lawrence Lazare writes in the Medium.
“That is why we document the world around us, so we can pass along our images to others when those photos are needed most,” he adds.
#16 In 1925, Diphtheria Affected An Isolated Village In Alaska
Many pictures here also show the history of specific people, some we know and some we won’t ever read about in history books.
They are remarkable because they tell us so many different stories, and they let us feel what life was really like for people in the past.
Everyday experiences and lifestyle such as clothes, expressions of kids, and interactions between people — all these images bring past lives to life.
#19 Female Pilots From The British Air Transport Auxiliary (Ata), Recruited To Work As Ferry Pilots And Deliver Military Airplanes From Factories To Aerodromes In World War II, England, 1939-45
#20 A Mother And Daughter Watch A Tall Ship Navigate The Thames In London, 1880
