One of the greatest components of reddit are the thriving subreddits, niche communities of people who share a passion for a specific topic. One of the Sifter’s personal favourites is r/ColorizedHistory (featured previously). The principal contributors are a mix of professional and amateur colorizers and restorers that bring historic photos to life through color. All of them are highly skilled digital artists that use a combination of historical reference material and a natural eye for colour.
When we see old photos in black and white, we sometimes forget that life back then was experienced in the same vibrant colours that surround us today. This gallery of talented artists helps us remember just that.
Below you will find a collection of some of the highest rated colorized images to date on r/ColorizedHistory.
1. Flippin’ Burgers
Crowley, Louisiana, USA – October 1928
2. Women Delivering Ice, 1918
Girls deliver ice. Heavy work that formerly belonged to men only is being done by girls. The ice girls are delivering ice on a route and their work requires brawn as well as the partriotic ambition to help., 09/16/1918 [source]
3. Times Square, 1947
4. Easter Eggs for Hitler, c 1944-1945
5. Mug shot of William Stanley Moore, 1 May 1925
Central Police Station, Sydney.
Special Photograph no. 1399. this picture appears in the Photo Supplement to the NSW Police Gazette, 28 July, 1926 captioned: ‘Opium dealer./ Operates with large quantities of faked opium and cocaine./ A wharf labourer; associates with water front thieves and drug traders.’ [source]
6. Painting WWII Propaganda Posters
Port Washington, New York – 8 July 1942
The art assembly line of female students busily engaged in copying World War II propaganda posters in Port Washington, New York, on July 8, 1942. The master poster is hanging in the background. [source]
7. Two survivors of the Battle of Gettysburg
at the 50th anniversary reunion, July 1913
8. Titanic sinks April 15, 1912. Newspaper boy Ned Parfett
sells copies of the evening paper bearing news of the disaster. (April 16, 1912)
9. “The Red Baron”, Manfred von Richthofen – ca 1917
10. Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge ca 1935
11. Marilyn Monroe, 1957
12. Cab stand in Madison Square Park, New York – ca 1900
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13. Louis Armstrong practicing in his dressing room, ca 1946
14. Portrait Used to Design the Penny. President Lincoln Meets General McClellan – Antietam, Maryland ca September 1862
15. Theodore Roosevelt in his Rough Rider uniform, ca 1898
16. Babe Ruth the Year He Joined the New York Yankees, 1920
17. Norman Rockwell Entering his Stockbridge Studio
Massachusetts, 1966
18. “The Tall Cowboy”, Ralph E. Madsen with Senator Morris Sheppard, 1919
19. Sergeant George Camblair practicing with a gas mask in a smokescreen – Fort Belvoir, Virginia, 1942
20. Lou Gehrig’s Farewell Speech – 4 July 1939
21. Otto Frank, Anne Frank’s father and the only surviving member of the Frank family revisiting the attic they spent the war in, 3 May 1960
22. Young Woman with Umbrella – Louisiana, 1937
23. Broadway at the United States Hotel
Saratoga Springs, N.Y. ca 1900-1915
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24. Ruth Malcomson, Miss America 1924
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