This is amazing. It is hard to believe these pics were taken 100 years ago.
It is funny how after looking at so many black and white pics of the past one starts to imagine that the past took place in black and white.
It is funny how after looking at so many black and white pics of the past one starts to imagine that the past took place in black and white.
What struck me most about the photos was the formality of the clothing. People used to dress nicer. I remember seeing an old Yankee Stadium crowd shot and almost everyone was wearing a tie. It makes for nicer imagery, but I'm not sure I would want to return to that.
(Cheaper fabric and increased automation in clothing factories -- the deployment of sewing machines and then sergers is where the change really got going -- drove down prices; the £2 mass-produced suit in the UK in the 1920s meant that any working man could afford a new suit, so the suit became a working garment and the display of wealth moved on to new fields. And that's why we have ultra-cheap, badly-made clothing, fast-changing fashion, and a casual attitude to what we wear.)
(( A good suit is something special. But you can keep the neckties ... ))
Rich people used to dress nicer. Poor people used to wear dirty worn-out clothes day in and day out.
Today, people dress nicer for important and/or rare pictures (weddings, official portraits, etc) than for point and shoot pictures at the park.