The Paper Girl

Antique & Vintage Ephemera Since 2019

9 Vintage Photographs of Everyday People

The best thing about old photographs is that they show us what life was like in the not-too-distant past.

We see the goodbyes, the hellos, the see-you-soons. These old photos represent the memories of people that can’t speak to us anymore, and who couldn’t leave behind videos the way we can now. Can you imagine how easy it will be for our descendants to understand—or at least know—our time period? Between the video cameras of the mid-20th-century and the cell phone footage of today, they’re set. They’re going to know everything we were up to—if anything is preserved, at any rate.

A simple farmhouse, a portrait of a family at rest.

This is likely out by one of the outbuildings, or a barn, it’s hard to say. Note the windows lack glass. I have no doubts that building is still standing today, if it wasn’t knocked down by other people.

A (presumably) happy time. I particularly like the the wear and fading on the edges of this photograph because it lends some extra character to a picture that already has a fair bit going on.

In my attempts to figure out what “Angels Black As Night” even means I have only found references to the Night Witches of WWII. I don’t imagine these two have anything to do with them, as I don’t think these pictures are from Russia, but I really have no way of knowing. All I can see is two people standing together in front of a hedge or tree. Maybe there are other things I’m missing!

Photographed on horseback in a surprise “hey, say cheese!” sort of pose. Or maybe it’s a “stop screwing around and get back to work” pose. We almost have an excellent silhouette here if you ignore that the front hooves are cut out of the frame!

An attempt was made to get a nice photo of the kids, and it went mostly alright. The little fella is not pleased to be standing getting his picture taken, and the little girl doesn’t seem overly enthused, either. That’s a “I don’t want to smile so I’m gonna pretend” smile if I’ve ever seen one!

A very nice photograph of a young girl with a… fish bowl? It’s hard to tell if there’s anything in there, even with zooming right in close, so I’m not sure if that’s just a house decoration or if there may be a pet in it. Folks certainly didn’t know any better then, and they’re too stubborn to house the poor things properly nowadays (yes, goldfish need filtration and a lot of space). A special occasion, maybe?

This young fellow is looking dapper all dressed up, and the wear from storage adds a slight creepy factor to the photographer’s shadow. This would be a great photo to play with for a horror-adjacent project. Turn the boy into a critter, add some stuff into the background—the possibilities are endless!

That’s all for this week. Stay tuned for more free vintage images, including some colouring pages from an old Saalfield activity book!

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I am slowly working on fleshing out and expanding some of my older entries so that they’re more interesting, and more worthwhile to browse. If you go back into the depths of the blog you may notice the changes that have been made!

Like separating gallery blocks into single images.

I am hoping that this helps with visibility, and it will cut down on the number of posts that just have one or two images. I want to make your visits worthwhile, after all!

Sponge Market, Nassau, Bahamas Postcard

There was a time when the Bahamas were a hotbed of sponging activity.

Hundreds of ships harvested sponges from the islands’ crystal-clear waters, resulting in an export of over a million pounds in 1917 alone for use in homes around the world. Sponging brought good money to families that took part, and spongers could make a decent living diving for the aquatic invertebrates.

The sponging industry in the Bahamas briefly died in the late 1930s after a fungus wiped out the sponge beds, then saw a revival in the 1950s. There has been a push to renew and modernize the sponging industry over the last decade or so.

The real photo postcard below shows a sponge market in Nassau, Bahamas. Divers or spongers on a ship would harvest the sponges from the sea floor with a special tool: a long pole tipped with a cutting hook. The sponge would be cut above the base, leaving some of the creature behind, and the sponges would grow back within a few years.

Upon returning to port, the harvest would be unloaded, cleaned, sorted, and dried. Sponges could be sold once they were dry. Not much has really changed since then—the harvesting method is still about the same, though most often sponges are cut by someone on a ship and not by a diver.

As much as things have changed, one thing remains the same: the demand for Bahamas sponges is still high. They are a renewable resource that does extremely well in the waters off the islands, and, unlike synthetic sponges, they are biodegradable. They’re probably not quite as disgusting as the synthetic ones, too. Those suckers smell weird after the first use.

… I think I might need to go shopping.

Anyway, if you haven’t subscribed to my mailing list while you’ve been browsing the site, I’d love it if you’d join me. You’ll be notified when new posts go up, and you’ll be the first to know of any fun features I add to the site—plus, I won’t spam the heck out of you. I’m not a barbarian, after all.

Thanks for reading, see you again soon for some more vintage images.

P.S. Have you visited the shop lately? You should.

A Hard-Working Postcard

Working hard? Hardly working? I think this vintage postcard does a good job of stating the obvious:

When it comes to hard work I’d rather do nothing better.

Same here. Same here.

Unfortunately for me, I’m not programmed to just ‘do nothing’, and my idea of working hard looks like ‘doing nothing’ to the people around me! Those of you that do similar work to mine know that feeling all too well, eh?

“What are you doing?”

“I’m working.”

“You’re just on the computer!”

Well, yes. That’s where my work is! Of course I’m on the computer. Look, see? I’m even writing a blog post! You’ll be able to read it in 10 minutes!

Ahem, anyway.

The above postcard came with the same batch that included the ol’ Oklahoma jackass, so there are a handful of other gems waiting in the wings to be revealed. It’s so simple! Sometimes simple is the best thing ever and gets our messages across without wasting too much time. Bold text on a bright colour is eye-catching enough without needing anything else to make somebody look.

In the past weeks I’ve been working on preparing a bunch more vintage graphics for the site, brainstorming what else to offer, and tweaking what my internet presence looks like. I’m spread so thin between Ko-fi, Etsy, here, and social media expectations that I’m starting to lose my mind! I’m also seriously considering going back to school for a proper career change. I just don’t know what. As tempting as getting a full Graphic Design education is, I just… don’t want to do that at a corporate level. Know what I mean? Doing creative stuff for other people full-time, stuff I don’t have much control over, is a great way to completely burn myself out.

I’m leaning toward accounting. I’m not terrible with numbers, I enjoy playing with them, and it’s different enough from the things I like to do for fun that I won’t burn out on it so quickly.

That doesn’t mean I’ll be giving this up any time soon! It might actually give me more time to work on it, if it gives me the means to start my life over again!

Anyway, what about you? What have you been working on?

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