41 Shocking Photos of Past Generations Show How Different Life Is Today

Flying with a child today takes all of the courage that a passenger can muster. Spending on the size and age of the child parents have to either pay for an adult seat or spend the entirety of the trip carrying their child on their lap, it’s not the best way to travel, not for the parent and not for their fellow passengers.

In the 1950s children rode in overhead cradles that freed up room for adults while giving them space to sleep. Even though the overhead cradle looks like the front of a bulldozer that’s ready to dump the child into the aisle, it’s actually a great idea that allowed children to get a break from their parents while the kids were rocked to sleep by the motion of the plane. 

More so than any other modern war, the fight in Vietnam exploded around women and children who were stuck in the middle, unable to escape their terrible fate. U.S. soldiers did what they could to save the Vietnamese children, but it wasn’t easy to keep them out of the fray. Things were so horrific for the children that President Gerald Ford put a plan in place to evacuate 2,000 orphans called “Operation Babylift.” The first flight of the operation crashed outside of Saigon, killing 144 people. Nguyen Thi Phuong Thuy, who was one of the orphans on the flight said:

I remember that flight, the one that crashed. I was about 6, and I'd been playing in the trash near the orphanage. I remember holding the nun's hand and crying when we heard. It was like we were all born under a dark star.

When you think about it, car seats have been one of the most reworked and refined pieces of technology of the 20th century. This constant updating shows that researchers and parents are always thinking about how to keep their children safe. Whether its with a large diaper-like holder that attaches to the back of a seat, or like the seat pictured, a seat that featured a metal frame surrounded by a buckle.

Even with the steering wheel attached to the front of the frame this seat is similar to what kids are sitting in today. Sure, there are cup holders, things to keep the baby interested, and probably even a phone charger, but the seat and the buckle haven’t really changed. 

Baby cabinets have been around since the 1950s, and even though this looks like a holder that would send modern mothers into a fury, these were actually a fairly normal occurrence for a couple of decades. It’s unfortunate that this child was abandoned, but he looks like he’s doing just fine in this blanketed cabinet.

Anyone who’s ever slept in a covered bed - whether on a tour bus or in a sensory deprivation-like tank - knows how nice it is to cut yourself off from the world in a blankety soft personal bed. Should we bring these back? Kids might love them, adults definitely would. 

America was still in the midst of World War II in 1943, but as soldiers returned home for leave they left a piece of themselves behind and the baby boom was born. Even though the boom technically started in ’46, the New York Times reports that the birthrate among military wives on West Coast bases spiked wildly in ’43, and that was probably the same in Pennsylvania. Luckily births were cheap, or at least inexpensive, at the time. 

Due to inflation $29.50 is about $436.78 today, which is still pretty cheap for child birth. Today a hospital birth costs on average $32,000, which is absolutely crazy. No wonder helicopter parents want to make sure their kids are safe at all hours of the day, they’re not just children they’re an investment. 

Even if families could afford a real live nanny in the 19th century it’s likely that they had a secondary defense measure for their children - a nanny dog. More often than not these dogs were pitbull terriers, an animal that makes for a good watch dog because it’s friendly, loyal and stable.

These dogs want to keep their owners happy and they’re very protective of the children in their charge. These nanny dogs kept their children safe no matter where they were, and while it might seem odd to leave a child alone with nothing but a dog to protect it, but anyone who’s ever had a connection with a pet that they love knows how important these kinds of animals are. 

It doesn’t matter what era in which someone was born, it’s never been easy to be an orphan. However, in the 19th century and the early 20th century the hardest part about growing up in an orphanage was staying out of trouble. The living conditions were harsh, and many young children had to grow up in homes with dozens of other children, if not more, with only a few adults to take care of them.

Orphans could be picked from the home where they were being kept, but more often than not they were taught trades and placed in lower class educational institutions. Unfortunately these institutions didn’t provide a great experience for everyone. 

No child should grow up in the midst of battle. They should know peace and a halcyon existence, but that’s not the way life is. Children growing up in Japan during World War II had no idea what their government was doing, and many of them lost their lives on August 6, 1945 (as well as in the following bombing in Nagasaki on August 9). The survivors grew up understanding the price of war, and the meaning of loss. Yasujiro Tanaka told Time Magazine about their experience surviving the bombing in Hiroshima: 

I was three years old at the time of the bombing. I don’t remember much, but I do recall that my surroundings turned blindingly white, like a million camera flashes going off at once. Then, pitch darkness. I was buried alive under the house, I’ve been told. When my uncle finally found me and pulled my tiny three year old body out from under the debris, I was unconscious. My face was misshapen. He was certain that I was dead… I have seen a lot of pain in my long years, but truthfully, I have lived a good life. As a firsthand witness to this atrocity, my only desire is to live a full life, hopefully in a world where people are kind to each other, and to themselves.

When a decade long drought hit the southern plains in 1931 it was as if a bomb went off. The land was ravaged, animals consumed anything that they could eat and the rain refused to fall. It was impossible to farm and the land seemingly fought against the very people who needed it to survive. Still, life had to continue.

Children growing up during the dust bowl had to keep going to school and working for their parents, they weren’t allowed to simply lay down and die because life was hard. To keep from getting sand in their lungs and eyes they wore mostly home made masks that covered their faces, keeping them as safe as possible from the elements. Growing up in this time made the children strong, and it’s why so many of our grandparents had a joie de vivre when it came to the more minor struggles of the modern era. 

Hold on baby, this soldier has to smooch the woman he’s been thinking about for the last 14 months. Coming home from battle was an adjustment to every soldier in World War II whether they had families or not. They were each profoundly changed by their time overseas and for many men it was a struggle to realign their brains to the “normal” way of life.

Luckily, this soldier has a good a base to return to. His wife is obviously happy to see him, and his baby looks fairly laid back with being held sideways. Honestly that’s just the way it was for kids in the middle of the century, you just had to get used to being pushed to the side while your parents locked lips. 

Throughout most of World War II major cities in England were major targets for air raids by the Nazis, turning normal life into something filled with death. Rather than lie down and give up, the English carried on with their lives and adjusted to the attacks. Patricia Negin Berger, who was six when blitz occurred, described being evacuated from the city with nothing but some clothing and gas masks. She told the Telegraph: 

I remember being in the school yard, then crossing a bridge with my twin brother and older brother aged 8. He carried a duffle bag with our belongings and we had gas masks… After a short time we returned to London and were sent to a boarding school in Essex where the bombs came fast and furious. We wore "siren suits", and when there was a raid we went to the school basement, slept on mattresses and sang patriotic songs. We were taught that if there was a raid and we were in a field, to lie down flat until the all-clear went or go to someone's house for safety.

Throughout the Vietnam War Saigon was never safe. It had the air of a city, and certainly wasn’t as dangerous as life in the villages ensconced in the jungle, but there was always the threat of death. In 1968 when the North Vietnamese troops and the Viet Cong launched the biggest battle of the war. The First Offensive, also known as the Battle of Saigon, pushed civilians out of the city with nothing but the clothes on their back.

Children had to shield themselves from gunfire and run for cover however they could. It was a nightmare that, thankfully, children don’t have to deal with today. 

Today children expect to receive whatever gifts they ask for on their holiday list, be it a new electronic bauble, a car, or whatever their hearts desire. That wasn’t the case for children growing up in Europe prior to the 19th century, especially when the Krampus was around. The Krampus is a demon-like half-goat who punishes naughty children by beating them with switches before stuffing them in his bag and taking them to his lair.

Krampus dates back to pagan winter solstice celebrations and he worked with St. Nicholas to judge children and determine if they deserved to be rewarded for their behavior. It’s a far cry from what happens during the modern era of the holidays, and to be honest kids today could use a little Krampus in their lives. 

During the Second Industrial Revolution that occurred between 1870 and 1914 business was booming and every industry needed people to fill the labor force. At the end the of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th there were jobs for everyone willing to put themselves in danger. If a boy could wear a helmet and drag coal then they could get a job to help provide for their families.

While this may seem like a misuse of children, it was a two sided coin. Industrial jobs shouldn’t have been hiring kids, but the children who took these jobs were coming from poor families who needed every cent they could get. While many of these children continued to work in the mines into adulthood, you have to think that some of them were inspired by their desperate surroundings and sought better work and a better life. It’s a far cry from today when children are kept from the work force for as along as possible. 

Surviving in London during the blitzkrieg meant pulling together as a community to ensure the safety the men, women, and children staying in the city. Some families slept in underground railway stations, others had bomb shelters that housed themselves and their neighbors. The shelters brought everyone closer and made them realize what they were fighting for. Len Phillips, now in his 80s, remembers what it was like to spend his nights sleeping in the bomb shelters of London:

It was cold and there was always the fear that if they burst a water main we might get flooded. They were the early days, so the spirit was quite good. We got on fairly well together and mucked in together… People did various things. The kids used to play. There was a photo of me putting up Christmas decorations where we had the bunks. I think we had a little party at the end of the platform that one year. It probably would have been Christmas Day. It wasn't long after that I was evacuated. I was getting very fragile round the edges. I kept thinking: ‘Is it ever going to end?’

1982 wasn’t even that long ago. It’s amazing to think that the treatment of mental patients has improved in leaps and bounds in the three decades since this photo was taken at the psychiatric hospital at Deir el Qamar, Lebanon. Even as recently in the ‘80s doctors didn’t know how to handle children suffering from mental illness, and rather than work with them the children were confined.

This would never fly today, and it shouldn’t have back then. Today, up to date psychiatric hospitals exist to help patients recover from their illnesses the best they can, or at the very least keep someone comfortable, and that goes double for children. 

Today, new parents can always pop out to the store and pick up a bushel of disposable diapers that can be tossed and forgot as soon as a new one is pinned to their child. But in the 1940s that wasn’t an option for parents. Not only was there a war on, which meant that everyone was rationing, but disposable diapers weren’t in the mainstream yet (they were invented in 1942).

In order to keep their homes smelling fresh mothers boiled their cloth diapers to make sure that they got out every drop of bacteria that seems to come out of a baby. Some women who were working didn’t have time to boil their own diapers so they started using a diaper laundry service that delivered clean and sterilized diapers to the home on a weekly basis. 

Picture this, you’re walking through a London promenade on a gorgeous summer day in 1942. You decide to stop at a cart for a snack. You hand over a quid to the man with the cart and he hands you a big, orange carrot. That was the way of life for everyone in England during World War II thanks to rationing. At the time there were only 8 ounces of sugar allowed per adult per week, and that’s not enough to make ice cream.

Rather than get down in the dumps the English came up with a genius plan, they turned carrots on a stick into the must have snack. Carrots were plentiful during the war so it wasn’t an issue to sell them all day long. Oddly enough, children born during the war didn’t even find out about ice cream until rationing ended. 

Company towns don’t exist anymore, or at least not the way they used to where a corporation provided housing and a store where people could shop as long as they were employed by the company. The homes were hastily built and the families were made up of immigrants and families looking put their noses to the grindstone to make some money.

One of the terrors of living in a mining community is how fast it could all go away. One community was drenched in ash in 1916 when gas ignited in a mine, causing an explosion. It was a simple yet dangerous life, something that children today simply don't have to think about.  

When the Berlin Wall went up in 1961 no one was able to pass across the barrier, it didn’t matter if they had friends or loved ones in the area, and it didn’t even matter if their children were stuck on the other side. Sigrid Paul gave birth to a boy in 1961 in East Berlin, but she lived in the West Initially it was okay for her to travel back an forth, but in August of that year no one was allowed to cross the wall and for five years she was without her son. Paul told The Guardian: 

Every day I went from one authority to another to try to get permission to see him, even for an hour or two. It was futile. Every application was rejected. The uncertainty about whether we would see Torsten again was unbearable.

Paul attempted to get her son back through legal and illegal means, and even ended up in prison for a short amount of time, but when her son was five he was well enough to travel and allowed to return home. 

Nothing beats learning to swim in the water. After all, that’s where 100 percent of swimming takes place. However, if you were grew up in a landlocked area or in a place where the water wasn’t all that great then the best way to learn to swim was to get the basics down before taking the plunge in an uncontrolled environment.

These boys are learning the dos and don’t of swimming, along with the necessary paddles and techniques to keep themselves afloat when they finally get the chance to take a dive. You’d be hard pressed to find a kid today who learned to swim this way today. 

We may not remember all of her movies, but everyone remembers Shirley’s Temple’s curly blonde locks. Even though she was presented as just a regular girl, those locks came about through a little movie magic and a lot of pain. Every night Temple had to have her hair set with 56 curls so her locks would be perfectly springy. She also underwent a weekly vinegar rinse that burned like at the Dickens.

Child actors definitely don’t have it this tough today. There are safety checks in place to make sure no one’s being hair pinned to death, and a kid today probably wouldn’t be able to sit still long enough to even get this mop top do. 

Families were bigger in the ‘60s but this is just outrageous. Can you imagine being one of 16? If you’re the youngest you’re definitely spending your entire adolescence in hand me downs and there’s no way you’d have your own room. However there are definitely some upsides. You’d always have someone to play with, and it’s likely that your parents would be too tired from raising (and presumably making) all those kids to discipline anyone.

Families like this just don’t exist anymore, or if they do they’re a part of some weird cult, and it’s probably for the best. While this family looks like a great group of people, where do you even put them all? 

For a lot of people it’s hard to imagine a time when you couldn’t just walk to the freezer and pop a few ice cubes into your drink, but in the early 20th century transportable ice - not to mention ice that was just in your house all the time - was almost magical. When Frederic and William Tudor first attempted to sell blocks of ice in the 1800s people weren’t interested.

By the 1820s Tudor managed to convince barkeeps, diners, and doctors that they needed ice. While people initially scoffed at the prospect it became somewhat of a fascination with people. They couldn’t believe that it stayed cold even in the heat. This summer remember to make sure the young people in your life say thanks to the Tudor brothers before giving them a cold drink. 

In South Carolina’s low country, children used to spend much of their time working menial jobs in order to help their families get by. Many of them were immigrants whose families split their time between Baltimore, Maryland and southern fish canneries. This nomadic way of life was what the families had to do to survive, and while it would be shunned upon now it was a normal life for many people.

The children spent half their day in school before spending the rest of the time shucking oysters and taking care of the tasks that adults frankly didn’t want to do. These menial jobs are all but gone now, with many of them performed by machines.

If the person riding this bike with their child in the front basket took their kiddo out for a spin today they’d be flogged in public, embarrassed on Facebook, and ridiculed on the evening news. There are contraptions and outfits that are made for parents who want to take their babies on a bike ride, but in the early 20th century that wasn’t the case.

In the 1920s parents who biked had to get creative for how they were going to get their kids around, and this bike basket was a pretty good solution. However, any speed bumps could spell imminent danger for junior. 

In 1932 and 1933 Ukrainians experienced famine that they referred to as Holodomor, or “murder through starvation.” The country was being starved out by Joseph Stalin, leading Ukrainians to literally dig for food and eat anything they could to survive while the surrounding countries pretended that nothing was happening. Survivor Oleksa Sonipul was 10 at the time and she recalls soldiers stealing their food and destroying their homes:

In 1933, just before Christmas, brigades came to our village to search for bread. They took everything they could find to eat. That day they found potatoes that we had planted in our grandfather's garden, and because of that they took everything from grandfather and all the seeds that grandmother had gathered for sowing the following autumn. And the next day, the first day of Christmas, they came to us, tore out our windows and doors and took everything to the collective farm.

No one knows how many people died during Holodomor but the numbers stretch into the millions. People died from starvation, and some just killed themselves so they wouldn’t have to live through another hungry day. 

When faced with eating turnips and cabbage for dinner, maybe children would turn up their noses until they received something they wanted. If they were asked to ear the same thing for a holiday meal they would revolt. Not during the Great Depression. During the Depression people ate what they had and more often than not they tried to make sure it was nutritious.

Not only were they unsure of when their next meal would be, but if they were lucky enough to have a job it was probably tough, menial labor. Many of the meals that people were eating were made up of what was available rather than something aesthetically pleasing. These were not Instagrammable meals. While speaking with NPR Jane Ziegelman explained the Depression era food pairings:

It's one of the really interesting characteristics of these Depression menus is that the ingredients seem to have nothing to say to one another on an aesthetic or sensory level. They were there to supply certain nutrients. And whatever they taste like together is not particularly relevant to the people planning these menus.

Does everyone remember what Bert the Turtle said? Duck and cover, kids. Today this outdated idea for survival during the Cold War seems silly, but many children are still dealing with similar versions of this practice albeit for different reasons. In the 1950s children were taught to duck and cover not because it would protect them from nuclear blasts, but from the glass that would harm them should a nuclear explosion go off in the area. You know, because everyone’s so worried about the glass in a nuclear explosion. The idea was that if you saw the flash of an atomic blast that you could hide beneath your desk while covering the back of your neck in time to make sure no arteries were hurt. 

Like it or not but fashion is a major part of a young person’s life today, and it has been since the ‘50s when greasers started wearing leather jackets and doing their hair with the oiliest substance known to man. Throughout the depression children didn’t have the ability to decide what they wanted to wear and often it was function that won out over form. 

Flour and feed sack dresses were a thrifty way to make sure someone was covered, and while these dresses were the epitome of “make do and mend” they also showed how creative people can be in the face of adversity. Women sewed up the bags, decorated them, and even turned them into cloths and “linens” when they outlasted their usefulness. 

Regardless of era parents have always wanted to have their children close to them, to share their experiences, and let them know that they’re loved. Manufacturers have been working for years, a century even, to help parents keep their children close and they’ve only recently nailed down the safest way to bring their children around with them.

This family looks truly happy, and even though this baby sling looks like it’s hard to maneuver they’re making it work in spite of how bored the child looks. Hopefully these two knew how to skate or invested in a helmet for the little one. 

Try to imagine young girls today going out on their own and selling dinners to strangers who were working in factories and mills. There’s no way that anyone in their right mind would allow their kids out on the streets today, but in 1913 it was a way of life, especially in Columbus, Ga. At the time girls would sell these dinners and more often than not they wouldn’t go to school. Photographer Lewis Hine explained:

The Sup[erintendent] of Schools and teachers in Danville said that many children toted dinners and did nothing else, not even attending school.

If someone let their kid walk around town selling food while they were supposed to be in school, they’d be in jail immediately. 

Migrant families lived in utter desperation during the Great Depression, people weren’t able to work, so they didn’t have money, meaning they didn’t have cash to pay for a home. Because of that they had to stay in migrant camps made up of tents and home made forts that barely kept them safe from the elements. Families stayed on the road in order to work migrant jobs that barely paid. People sharecropped, they begged, and they did what they could to get by. Today they would be looked at as homeless, but this was how life was in the Great Depression. 

From 1879 to 1918 U.S. Army officer Richard Henry Pratt operated the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in an attempt to help Native American children assimilate into American culture. Before he was an educator Officer Pratt was a leader of the “Buffalo Soldiers,” but when he saw the sorry state of affairs on Native reservations he decided to help educate their children. He said:

The school at Carlisle is an attempt on the part of the government to do this. Carlisle has always planted treason to the tribe and loyalty to the nation at large. It has preached against colonizing Indians, and in favor of individualizing them...

As the demand for labor grew throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, industrial employers started hiring anyone who could stand on their feet for long hours and perform menial tasks. Children became a major part of America’s economy, but without the proper rules in place many of them came down with illnesses that were caused by their factory work.

Lewis Hine, a New York City schoolteacher and photographer, decided to chronicle the abuse that child workers faced while working in factories in order to help change their working conditions. He explained:

There is work that profits children, and there is work that brings profit only to employers. The object of employing children is not to train them, but to get high profits from their work. 

When someone thinks of New York City one of the first things that comes to mind is the Tetris like formations of the outdoor fire escapes that cover etc building in the Burroughs. Most fire escapes were added in the early part of the 20th century, but by 1968 buildings were getting higher and the fire escapes weren’t helpful.

For children in the city fire escapes were just as good as a jungle gym. They could be jumped across, climbed up, and swung around, what’s not to love? Obviously parents don’t want their kids playing on old metal equipment, but these kids look like they’re having an amazing time and isn’t that what’s important?

No matter what anyone tells you, more often than not the best medicine is good old fashioned sunlight and fresh air. This treatment was most appropriate when it came to treating newborn jaundice, a liver ailment that causes a yellowing in the skin and eyes of a newborn baby. It happens when a child has a high level of bilirubin, a substance that replaces red blood cells.

In the middle of the 20th century doctors treated newborn jaundice by making sure the kids got a little bit of sunshine every day, and even if that sounds like an outmoded way of thinking keep in mind that doctors still believe that filtered sunlight is the best way to keep these boys and girls healthy and happy. 

And people wonder why kids are afraid of clowns. Ronald McDonald got his start in the 1960s as a replacement for Bozo the clown. He was initially played by NBC weatherman Willard Scott for a Washington D.C. McDonald's franchise, but when Ray Kroc decided to take the clown to the national stage he recast the role and even redid the makeup.

Every era has their own Ronald McDonald, and whether you grew up with Scott’s cup nosed version of the more traditional, red afro wearing Ronald, you remember his commercials reminding you to scarf down burgers as quickly as possible. Today, Ronald isn’t as prevalent as he was from the ‘60s through the ‘90s, and it’s a little sad that kids will never know the feeling of trying to eat a burger in peace while a french fry hungry clown stalks a fast food restaurant. 

The Bowery Boys were a group of young homeless children who lived on the streets of New York City in the late 19th century. The boys all had different stories. Some were homeless because they were kicked out of their homes, others were orphans, and some of the children simply had to leave because there was no room for them in the tenements where their families lived. The photo by Jacob Riis is one of many that showed America the way people were living on the streets, for many this was the first they knew of such slums. Riis described the boys in his book, How The Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York:

They are to be found all over the city, these Street Arabs, where the neighborhood offers a chance of picking up a living in the daytime and of ‘turning in’ at night with a promise of security from surprise. In warm weather a truck in the street, a convenient out-house, or a dug-out in a hay-barge at the wharf make good bunks. Two were found making their nest once in the end of a big iron pipe up by the Harlem Bridge, and an old boiler at the East River served as an elegant flat for another couple.

If you grew up in the ‘80s then you know the strange fear that came every year when the Scholastic book fair. Would there be a new collection of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark? What would the cover be? And would it keep you up at night? As scared as many readers were of the amazing art by Stephen Gammell, they had to get their hands on a copy. As frightening as the books were they were also must-read books for every young person.

The books were so spooky that they consistently wound up on the challenged book list through the ‘90s, and finally the art was changed to make the art less gruesome, which is disappointing but sounds exactly like what would happen with modern readers. 

Cotton Mills were used to spin and weave yarn from cotton. It was a necessary industry at a time when the business was exploding. The mills had poor lighting, terrible ventilation, and the roofs were so low that even the young workers had to crouch while attempting to stand upright. They weren’t what you would call adequate working conditions. However, the children working in these mills sucked it up and carried on in order make money for their families. Aside from the back problems workers could get caught in the machines. Accidents happened all the time, which made it a terrible place for children to work.