30 Vintage Pictures Of People Having Good Old Fashion Fun In The 1800s
I’ve always loved digging through old photos from over a century ago and trying to imagine what life actually felt like for the people in them.
There’s something fascinating about seeing folks in the 1800s just… having fun. Laughing, relaxing, and finding ways to enjoy themselves long before modern entertainment existed. It makes history feel less like a textbook and more like real life frozen in time.
These vintage pictures capture that energy perfectly, showing that even back then people were still chasing joy, making memories, and proving that “good old fashioned fun” has been around a lot longer than we think.
1. Boy painting a face on the back of his fathers bald head, 1877.
2. This one’s been making the rounds over the internet
3. Just some friends goofing around in the 1890s
4. There is no photo that isn’t improved by including a cat
5. Two well-dressed chaps and their equally dapper dog. Stockholm, Sweden, ca. 1880’s.
6. My great grandfather apparently was a pioneer of Photoshop. Every person pictured is him (circa 1910s).
7. Couple trying not to laugh as they get their picture taken.
8. Peanut Vendor wearing a suit made out of peanuts (1890)
9. Young girl trying to cut a sunbeam (1886)
10. Two women making a snowman. The photo was published in “The Strand Magazine” in January 1892. The caption read: “No support of any kind was used. There were no hidden sticks or threads to support the head, body or arms.”
11. Top Shelf!
12. A Native American girl of the Kiowa tribe, Oklahoma, 1894
13. Archduke Franz Ferdinand pretending to be a mummy (1896)
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15. Glass negative of 2 children fighting a St bernard for a stick, circa 1890s.
16. Glass negative of a little girl juming rope, circa 1890s.
17. Little girl on her trike pedaling as fast as she can, glass negative, Ireland circa 1890s
18. Spanish Flu, 1918. Family Portrait.
19. Family photo… with exchange of roles (1880/1890)
20. Young woman smiling. Picture by Carlos Relvas, a pioneer of amateur photography in Portugal. Lisbon, 1886.
21. The best gorilla joke of 1897
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23. Little girl jumping from a post in th beach of New York, 15 of May 1887. Glass negative
24. Nicholas II of Russia (in a light suit) makes the airplane (1899)
25. Young couple kissing in a pumpkin patch – 1899
26. Colorized
27. The amazing Nora Kerin, an Edwardian stage actress killing it in her co-star’s prince outfit from ‘The Prince and The Beggarmaid’.
28. A nobleman travels in a rare palanquin driven by servants in Seoul, Korea, 1889.
29. I said “say cheese”, not “sneeze”!
30. A group of Samurai visiting the Sphinx in 1864
