It's true that life is hard right now, but life in the past often wasn't any better.
Economic downturn and the Dust Bowl rocked the 1930s, war rocked the 1940s, and life on the frontier meant starvation and scarcity. Things are still pretty good for us as far as quality of life is concerned. Let's hope they stay that way.
Here are 25 photos of the past to make the present more palatable.
1
The California Limited
Santa Fe Rail Road, 1905.
2
The Three Chiefs – Piegan
By Edward S. Curtis, 1900.
3
Tennessee is Ratified as the 36th State
Alice Paul, national chairman of the Woman's Party, unfurled the ratification banner from suffrage headquarters, Washington, DC. 1920.
4
The Golden Gate Bridge
San Francisco, 1937.
5
Farmer
Crossing the street in Eufaula, Oklahoma. 1940.
6
A Sick Man in the Laennec Barracks
A temporary tuberculosis hospital in Paris, late 1910s.
7
An Unfinished Steel Structure
Still standing after an earthquake, San Francisco, 1906.
8
Canal Street T
he main thoroughfare of New Orleans, 1901.
9
Walking Towards LA
Two men on the move, 1937.
10
Para-Fireman
On his way to fight forest fires in 1943.
11
High School Locker Room
Football team after a loss. 1950.
12
Peter Cooper's Tom Thumb
A train in 1900.
13
Trestle Work
Promontory Point, Salt Lake Valley. 1869.
14
Subway
On an elevated track, 1915.
15
Men on a Railroad Handcar
Weber Cañon, Utah, 1869.
16
A Roller Skater
Nifty gadgets in 1910.
17
The Main Street of Honolulu
Hawaii in 1902.
18
Food, Beer, and Drugs
Cascade, Idaho, 1939.
19
Women Subway Guards and a Conductor
Looking at a railway car on a Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company line. 1917.
20
A Train Plows Through High Water
Illinois, 1907.
21
The Chrysler Building
Standing tall in 1930.
22
Chinatown in San Francisco
California in 1920.
23
Truck Driver
In a diner, Clinton, Indiana, 1940.
24
Wife of Resettled Farmer
Roanoke Farms, North Carolina, 1938.
25
Buried Farm Machinery
Dust storm aftermath in Cimarron County, Oklahoma, 1936.
