Alex Buscemi
Older folks love to refer to the past as the “good ole days.” But judging by these creepy pics, the past was anything but “good” — “scary,” “disturbing,” and “nope” are far better ways to describe it.
From wax figures to dolls and masks, everything about the past was unsettling as hell. Somehow these things are rendered even creepier because most of them were intended to be appealing to the eye or fun for kids.
Turn on all the lights and scroll below for a horrific tour through a (thankfully) bygone era.
1. “So my aunt casually tells me today that she once found a ton of skeletons in her garden.”
2. “Martin Luther King Jr. with his son, pulling up a burnt cross from the front lawn of his Atlanta home, April 1960”
3. “If you ever wondered how the American buffalo could go from 30,000,000 to 300 in 50 years, pictures like this may give some idea (buffalo skulls)”
4. “Children after working in the mine”
5. “Department store wax mannequins melting during a heatwave in 1929”
6. Meditation room with stuffed animals and dried human heads, Tibet, 1920.
7. A train shredded after a boiler explosion – there’s something about this image I find weirdly unsettling
8. Halloween Costumes from the 1930s
9. Katharina Detzel, a mental patient who built her own man out of the straw in her bed, 1910. she was murdered by the Nazi euthanasia program in 1941.
10. Melted wax figures rescued from the 1925 fire at Madam Tussaud’s London museum
11. A full-faced swimming mask designed to protect women’s skin from the sun in the 1920s
12. A 16th century plague doctors mask
13. Photo of Two Women with Super Long Hair
14. Some paper mache heads from The First World War
15. Old Doll Factory
16. Meeting of the Mickey Mouse Club in the 1930’s
17. A woman in the Wild West wearing a bonnet and a mask designed to protect skin from sun damage.
18. ‘Hells Cafe’ in Paris 1920s
19. Humpty Dumpty 1939
20. Photograph of a Victorian baby held by their Mother.
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