Life of the 1850s: 45 Amazing Photos That Show How the World Looked Like Over 160 Years Ago
Over 160 years ago, the world was in a state of transition. The Industrial Revolution had laid the groundwork for an upcoming rapid modernization; steamships and telegraph lines were making the world a smaller place; the United States was struggling with the issue of slavery and trying to avoid a civil war; and a relatively new invention was becoming an indispensable tool for artists, documentarians, and journalists: the camera.
By the 1850s, dozens of photographers were traveling the world, capturing scenes they either hoped to sell, or were commissioned to photograph. These amazing photos will bring you back to the 1850s to see how the world has changed.
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| Drinking and cards, circa late 1850s |
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| Engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel (front row, center-right) and others observe the SS Great Eastern launch attempt in Blackwall, London, November 1857. It was a massive steamship, the largest ship ever built when it launched |
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| Faruk Khan, or Farrokh Khan Amin-Doleh, vice premier to the court of Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar, and the Persian ambassador to French emperor Napoleon III, and Queen Victoria, circa 1857 |
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Former President Martin Van Buren, the eighth president of the United States, posing in photographer Mathew Brady’s
New York portrait studio, circa 1855-1858 |
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| Group portrait of a man, woman, and boy, with Niagara Falls in the background, circa 1855 |
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| Horses and carts surround a busy Quincy Public Market in downtown Boston, 1857 |
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| Jerusalem, Site of the Temple on Mount Moriah, and Jerusalem, Court of the Mosque of Omar, 1857 |
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| Men at work beside the launching chains of the Great Eastern while under construction at London’s Millwall Iron Works on the River Thames, November 18, 1857 |
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| Morlaix – Le quai de Tréguier, 1857 |
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| Napoleon III, emperor of France, 1857 |
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| Paris looking back toward the Ile de la Cité from across the Seine, circa 1857 |
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| Peter Force, American editor, publisher, and historian, served as the 12th mayor of Washington, D.C., from 1836 to 1840, circa 1857 |
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| Pierre Clément Eugène Pelletan, a French writer, journalist, and passionate critic, circa 1855-1859 |
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| Portrait of a girl in the Netherlands, circa 1855 |
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| Portrait of newlyweds Dorman and Eliza Egbert Cortright, Battle Creek, Michigan, circa 1850 |
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| Portrait of the Baroness of Séverac, 1856-1859 |
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Queen Victoria’s visit to the Manchester Exhibition of Art Treasures of the United Kingdom in Manchester, England,
June 1857 |
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| Samuel Morse, the American artist and inventor, standing in a studio with an automatic telegraph receiver, which would record incoming morse-code messages onto paper, circa 1857 |
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| San Francisco and the harbor from Stockton Street, containing the portions between Washington and Sacramento Streets, 1856 |
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| Seascape with a ship leaving port in Sète, France, 1857 |
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| St. Sophia (Hagia Sophia) from the Hypodrome, Constantinople, Turkey, in 1857. The site of the former Hippodrome of Constantinople is now called Sultanahmet Square in modern Istanbul |
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| The Chattar Manzil palace wall in Lucknow, India, which was destroyed by mutineers during the Indian Rebellion of 1857 (also known as the Sepoy Mutiny) |
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| The earliest surviving photo of Japanese feudal lord, Shimazu Nariakira, dressed formally, September 17, 1857 |
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| The French-English fleet in the harbor of Cherbourg-Cotentin, France, August 1858 |
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| The inauguration of President James Buchanan, at the east front of the United States Capitol Building, March 4, 1857 |
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| The Parker House Hotel, possibly in the late 1850s |
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| The Pyramids of Dahshoor from the east, 1857 |
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| The River Seine in Paris, from the Square du Vert-Galant, a park at the tip of the Ile de la Cité, 1857 |
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| The Sphinx, built during the Egyptian Fourth Dynasty, stands in the desert with the Pyramid Cheops nearby in Giza, 1857 |
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| The U.S. Capitol Building dome under construction, looking south from the roof of the Senate wing, showing the first row of columns near completion and the cast-irons pillars up, 1857 |
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| Virginia Oldoini, Countess of Castiglione, better known as ‘La Castiglione’, an Italian aristocrat who achieved notoriety as a mistress of Emperor Napoleon III of France, circa 1857 |
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| Young gentleman of the 1850s |
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| A group of Gurkha soldiers with their British officer, during the Indian Mutiny or Great Sepoy Rebellion, 1857 |
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| A portrait of two women gleaners in rural England, 1857 |
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| Abraham Lincoln, immediately prior to his Senate nomination in Chicago, Illinois, February 28, 1857 |
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| An abbot accompanies students visiting the Roman Forum in Rome, Italy, circa 1857 |
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| Barrack Hill, Ottawa, during the construction of the Parliament Buildings, circa 1857 |
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| Battery Street in San Francisco, California, 1856 |
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| Boston and a busy Boston Harbor looking north from the State House dome in 1858 |
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| Brant Point Light Station, on Nantucket Harbor, Nantucket Island, Massachusetts in the 1850s |
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| Camp de Châlons; The Zouave storyteller, Chalons, France, 1857 |
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| Canadian man posing in front of his house, circa 1855 |
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| Cathedral, Baltimore, Maryland, 1856 |
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| Cloud study over Paris, circa 1850s |
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| Construction workers build a new jail in St. Paul, Minnesota, 1857 |
38 Amazing Pics Document Everyday Life of the US in the 19th Century
In the decades following the Civil War, the United States emerged as an industrial giant. Old industries expanded and many new ones, including petroleum refining, steel manufacturing, and electrical power, emerged. Railroads expanded significantly, bringing even remote parts of the country into a national market economy.
Industrial growth transformed American society. It produced a new class of wealthy industrialists and a prosperous middle class. It also produced a vastly expanded blue collar working class. The labor force that made industrialization possible was made up of millions of newly arrived immigrants and even larger numbers of migrants from rural areas.
American society became more diverse than ever before.
These amazing pics from Thiophene_Guy documented everyday life of the United States from between the 1850s and 1890s.
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| Broadway on a rainy day, NY, 1859 |
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| The Rag Rorums celebration at St Johnsbury, Vermont, 1959 |
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| Market Day, Hanover Street entrance, Carlisle, PA, 1860 |
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| The railroad station at Lewistown, PA, circa 1860s |
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| Civil War era Independence Day picnic, PA, 1862 |
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| Soldiers on Broadway (New York City), men in trees and crowds lining the street during Abraham Lincoln’s funeral procession, 1865 |
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| Pawnee Indian camp, 1866 |
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| Christmas in Orford, NH, 1868 |
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| A family prayer meeting, perhaps in the vicinity of Newport, Rhode Island, circa 1869 |
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| Group of young lady Sunday school teachers, Ottawa, Illinois, circa 1870s |
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| Minnehaha falls in winter, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1870 |
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| New Orleans Principal steamboat landing, from Gravier street, looking down the levee, circa 1870 |
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| The shop was located at showroom at 346 and 348 Broadway, New York, circa 1870s |
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| Chicago river after the Great Fire, 1871 |
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| Minnehaha falls and bridge, circa 1871 |
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| An artist sketching ancient ruins, Cañon de Chelle, N.M, circa 1873 |
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| Whirligig in Shützen Park, Philadelphia, PA, 1873 |
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| The Club Girls of Friend’s School, Providence, Rhode Island, 1874 |
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| Family in front of a sod house, Kansas, circa 1875 |
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| A lady and her horse in Putnam, NH, circa 1880s |
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| American Fork Canyon, Wasatch Range, Utah, circa 1880s |
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| Buildings in Atchison, Kansas, circa 1880s |
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| A busy street in Bismarck, Dakota Territory (now North Dakota), 1883 |
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| A group on Flag Staff Ledge in Mauch Chunk, PA, circa 1885 |
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| A spelling match in Augusta, Georgia, circa 1885 |
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| Croquet in Augusta, Georgia, circa 1885 |
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| Lightwood merchants in Augusta, Georgia, 1885 |
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| Bathers in the surf at Manhattan beach, Brooklyn, New York, 1889 |
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| The first ferris wheel, Chicago, 1893 |
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| Circus parade, Washington, D.C., 1894 |
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| Broad Street, Philadelphia, circa 1895 |
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| Independence Day festivities in Marengo, Illinois, 1896 |
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| Wrong end up, Atlantic City, NJ, 1896 |
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| A pioneer and his family in Oregon, circa 1890s |
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| Coney Island bathers, NY, 1899 |
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| Decorated San Francisco, circa 1890s |
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| Horse drawn trolley traffic on Washington Street, Boston, MA, circa 1890s |
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| On the beach at Coney Island, NY, 1899 |
40 Amazing Outdoor Photos Show What Life Looked Like in Victorian Era
Most of the earliest photographs were not printed on paper, but on sheets of metal or glass. While the images themselves are beautiful, the photographic processes used to create the images are equally fascinating.
Daguerreotypes are often considered the first practical form of photography. The process was invented by Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre in 1839, and the richness and detail of the images surpasses even those of modern photographic techniques.
Ambrotypes are often confused with daguerreotypes Glass plate ambrotype because they are housed in the same type of case. The ambrotypes were placed in ornate box cases to protect the fragile glass plates. This type of photography was very popular and widely available from the 1850s through the 1880s, largely because ambrotypes were cheaper to produce than daguerreotypes. Ambrotypes, like daguerreotypes, could be hand painted with color or gold to make the photo more appealing.
Tintypes used the same wet collodion process ambrotypes did, but the process was applying thin sheets of iron coated in black or dark brown paint instead of glass. The process was developed in 1856 and was extremely popular in the United States as tintypes were cheap, thin, and more durable than ambrotypes or daguerrotypes. Some tintypes were placed in decorative box cases, but the majority were placed in paper frames or left loose, which made the photos easy to send in the mail. Tintypes were especially popular among Civil War soldiers and their families. Many photographers set up shop in military camps.
Paper photography ultimately triumphed over metal and glass techniques, largely because they were easier to use and cheaper to produce. Photo paper coated with albumen, collodion, or gelatin allowed for increasing detail to be captured in a shorter amount of time.
Take a look at these amazing outdoor photos to see what life looked like in Victorian era.
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| Portrait of a family, circa late 1850s |
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| Daguerreotype of an outdoor group, circa 1850s |
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| Portrait of a couple outside their house, circa 1950s |
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| Ambrotype of a group assembled in front of a house with a stone slab in the foreground, circa 1857 |
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| Mother and children outside home, circa 1858 |
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| Ambrotype of a family, circa 1860s |
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| Ambrotype of two smokers, circa 1860 |
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| Daguerreotype of mother and daughter, circa 1860s |
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| Family group, circa 1860 |
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| Young lady by the river, circa 1860s |
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| Mother and her children, dated on the back: “July 19/63” |
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| A Civil War era ambrotype of an unidentified group of people taken in a forest setting, circa 1865 |
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| Mother and child in garden, circa 1867 |
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| A tintype of horse and buggy, taken in what looks like the main street of a rural North American town, circa 1870 |
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| Ambrotype of a family at the seaside, circa 1870s |
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| Ambrotype of a farmer with his horse and wagon, circa 1870 |
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| Ambrotype of three men, circa 1870s |
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| Four men, circa 1870 |
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| On the back read: “John Rubery and Sisters”, circa 1880s |
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| Tintype of a couple, circa 1880s |
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| Tintype of a large family posed in a rustic setting with their two dogs, circa 1880 |
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| Tintype of a row of buildings with a mule drawn cart and its driver in the foreground and what looks to be a large body of water, possibly a river, in the background, circa 1880 |
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| Tintype of two couples, circa 1880s |
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| Tintype of two ladies, circa 1880s |
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| Victorian family home, taken somewhere in Victoria, Australia, circa 1880 |
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| In the woods, circa 1884 |
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| Outdoor tintype of a lady, Baxter Springs, Kansas, circa 1889 |
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| Farming family, circa 1890 |
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| Man on horseback at “Pepper Corn Tree Farm”, Leichardt, Victoria, Australia, circa 1890 |
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| Tintype of a uniformed man standing in the snow in front of a railway bridge, likely taken in Canada, circa 1890 |
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| Tintype of three ladies and a baby, circa 1890 |
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| Victorian school kids from western Victoria, circa 1890 |
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| A group of people, probably a family, on the deck of what looks like a seagoing ship, circa 1895 |
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| Family outing, circa 1895 |
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| Victorian picnic, somewhere in Australia, circa 1895 |
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| A group of people gathered together for a picnic. From the tree ferns it was likely taken somewhere in southern Victoria, Australia, circa late 1890s |
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| Ambrotype of a family apparently on a seaside holiday, circa 1890s |
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| Cyanotype of a woman with bike and child, circa 1890s |
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| Outdoor tintype of two men, circa 1890s |
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| Tintype of a little girl at the seaside, circa 1890s |
