#1 Ojibwe Woman, Ponemah, Minnesota, Photograph Taken By Roland W. Reed C.1908
#2 A Seaman's Request For An Extraordinary Leave Of Absence, 1967. Reason: “My Wife Is Planning To Get Pregnant This Weekend And I Would Like To Be Present.”
But who needs history anyway? Some people wonder why we should bother studying it when we could be preparing for the future instead. But think about it: can we be ready for what's coming if we don't know what's happened before? The past gives us all kinds of insights that can help us tackle the challenges of today and tomorrow. Without that knowledge, we could be in for some tough times.
As American historian and journalist Eric Alterman pointed out, since our political discourse is increasingly dominated by sources who care nothing for truth or credibility, we come closer and closer to the situation that Walter Lippmann warned about a century ago, in his seminal 'Liberty and the News.'
"Men who have lost their grip upon the relevant facts of their environment are the inevitable victims of agitation and propaganda. The quack, the charlatan, the jingo ... can flourish only where the audience is deprived of independent access to information,” he wrote.
#3 Renowned Photographer Walter Chandoha Created One Of His Most Famous Photographs Of His Daughter Paula And A Small Kitten Smiling At The Camera At The Same Time, 1955
#4 A Police Officer Playing Duck Duck Goose With Children In New York, 1970
Historian Daniel Bessner agrees. "If Americans don’t seriously invest in history and other humanities disciplines, we encourage the ahistoric ignorance ... Progress depends on studying and arguing about the past in an open and informed manner."
According to Bessner, this is especially true nowadays, when people use history to fight over which vision of the country will dominate the political scene.
#8 Girls Sent Home From Mckinley High School For Wearing Slacks And Blue Jeans, Chicago, 1946
#9 The Oldest Indian, John Smith, Managed To Live In Three Centuries At Once, Being Born In The 18th Century, Living Throughout The 19th Century And Dying In The 20th Century. It Is Alleged That He Lived For About 137 Years
Dr. Darren R. Reid, who earned his Ph.D. from the University of Dundee and is now a lecturer at Coventry University, explained to Bored Panda for our earlier publication on historical pictures that images are an incredibly important part of how we understand the past.
"They give us a distinct look into how people and societies viewed themselves and each other," Reid said back then. "In the medieval period, for example, Jesus and the saints were often depicted as physically larger than ordinary people — not because they were believed to be taller, but because they occupied a higher status in the minds of the artists who produced these images, and the audiences who consumed them. In later centuries, Europeans (and their descendants) looked to the classical world for inspiration, spending huge amounts of time (and money) on images that were both increasingly realistic and idealized."
#11 Vancouver's First Official Lifeguard, Joe Fortes, 1905. Fortes, Who Was Born In Trinidad And Tobago, Was Credited With Saving Dozens Of Lives And Was Known As "Old Black Joe"
Reid added that "Native Americans and American colonizers were frequently depicted in classical poses — all deliberate choices that show us how many people perceived the invasion of the Americas and the genocides that occurred there."
"They also include important details (such as items of clothing, hairstyles, etc.) that help us to picture the past. For modern people, this means we can more accurately imagine, and perhaps, empathize with the very different folks who came before us."
#14 The Ship "Queen Elizabeth" Arrives At The Port Of New York. On Board Are Soldiers Returning From World War II, 1945
Darren R. Reid highlighted that developing an eye for visual storytelling allows us to detect when someone's trying to bend the narrative.
"The invasion of the Americas was frequently sanctioned and/or driven by governments, but it was the acts of 'ordinary' people that made it possible, and across that continent, a huge body of work was produced to justify, even encourage some really terrible acts," he said.
"American comic books and movies depicted Native Americans as simple, brutish, and savage. This helped to justify genocide and colonization as it was ongoing — and justify it, long after the most violent part of the process was complete. For a great example, check out the awful depiction of Native Americans in Disney’s Peter Pan. They helped to justify the colonial project to generations of children, right up to the present day."
#17 This Is What The Empire State Building Looked Like Against The Background Of Other Buildings, 1941
#18 Abraham Lincoln In 1861 And 1865. A Noticeable Four-Year Contrast Against The Backdrop Of War
#19 An Old Fisherman Photographed In Bergen, Norway In 1902 By Anders Beer Wilse
#20 New York, 1958. Dancers In A Nightclub Play Chess. Smartphones Haven't Been Invented Yet
Today, 66 percent of the global population and 97 percent of the U.S. population use the internet where they are under a constant barrage of content. Hopefully, places like the subreddit 'Rare Historical Photos' will help them navigate the overwhelming amount of information.