We often envision history in black and white. This is mainly because up until the 1970s, photos were only produced in monochrome.
Color photography back then was extremely rare since its production was strictly the domain of few intrepid experimenters highly skilled to build their own equipment, do their own color-sensitizing of photographic emulsions, make and test their color filters and devote plenty amount of time, money and effort to produce color photos.
Unlike today, photos can be bent and played with in various ways, thanks to technology. With many photography tools (programs, apps, accessories) readily available, a number of skilled individuals decided to bring life, through color, to a wide collection of historical photographs which we’ve only seen in black and white – until now.
The series of high-quality colorized photos are comprehensively filed and collected in Reddit’s Colorized History community.
These 65 below are among their most powerful colorized photographs. Enjoy!
1. A breeches buoy is put into service to transfer survivors of a sunken ship from a U.S. destroyer to a cruiser, November 14, 1942.
via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
2. Alfred Hitchcock
via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
3. Claude Monet, 1923
Dana Keller │ via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
4. Times Squre, 1947
Jordan J. LLoyd │ via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
5. Helen Keller meeting comedian Charlie Chaplin in 1918.
via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
6. Pablo Picasso
via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
7. Mardi Gras, New Orleans, 1907.
Sanna Dullaway │ via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
8. Lou Gehrig, July 4, 1939. The original photo was taken right after his famous retirement speech. He would pass away just two years later from ALS.
via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
9. Lee Harvey Oswald, 1963. Photo taken as he was being transported to questioning before his murder trial for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
10. Unemployed lumber worker and his wife, 1939.
via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
11. Times Square, D-Day, 1944.
Jenos Color │ via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
12. Winston Churchill, 1941
via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
13. Albert Einstein, 1921
Dana Keller │ via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
14. Madison Square Park New York City around 1900.
Sanna Dullaway │ via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
15. Marilyn Monroe
via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
16. British soldiers returning from the front in 1939.
via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
17. American Poet Walt Whitman, 1868
via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
18. Jimmy Stewart. Stewart is an actor and Brigadier General who flew 20 combat missions over Nazi-occupied Europe, and even flew one mission during Vietnam.
via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
19. Children watch as their neighborhood is bombed in Minsk, Belorussia. The bombing was part of Operation Barbarossa. June, 1941.
via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
20. Samurai Training, 1860
Jordan J. LLoyd │ via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
21. Inventor and physicist Thomas Alva Edison. New Jersey, 1911
Laiz Kuczynski │ via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
22. Joan Crawford on the set of Letty Lynton, 1932
via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
23. Country store in July 1939. Gordonton, North Carolina.
via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
24. Mark Twain, 1900
via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
25. Albert Einstein on a Long Island beach in 1939.
via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
26. Babe Ruth’s 1920 MLB debut.
Dana Keller │ via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
27. Audrey Hepburn
via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
28. Union Soldiers taking a break, 1863
via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
29. Charles Darwin
via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
30. Brothers Robert Kennedy, Edward “Ted” Kennedy, and John F. Kennedy outside the Oval Office.
via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
31. WWII soldiers on Easter
via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
32. Charlie Chaplin at 27 years old in 1916.
via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
33. Girls delivering ice, 1918.
Dana Keller │ via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
34. W.H. Murphy testing the bulletproof vest in 1923.
via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
35. Hindenburg Blimp crash
via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
36. Big Jay McNeely, Olympic Auditorium, 1953
via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
37. American nurse and social reformer Margaret Sanger, 1916.
Laiz Kuczynski │ via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
38. Louis Armstrong practicing backstage in 1946.
Dana Keller │ via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
39. An Ojibwe Native American spearfishing, Minnesota, 1908.
Jenos Color │ via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
40. Back when there was no air-con… Licking blocks of ice during heat wave in 1912, NYC.
Sanna Dullaway │ via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
41. Red Hawk of the Oglala Sioux Tribe on horseback, 1905.
Dana Keller │ via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
42. Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, ca. 1935.
Dana Keller │ via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
43. A Washington, D.C. filling station, 1924.
Patty Allison │ via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
44. Burger Flipper, 1938
Jordan J. LLoyd │ via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
45. Hot dog stand in North End, Boston, 1937
Manuel De Leonardo │ via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
46. An Oklahoman farmer during the great dust bowl in 1939.
via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
47. Louis Armstrong plays to his wife, Lucille, in Cairo, Egypt 1961.
Jordan J. LLoyd │ via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
48. Brooklyn Bridge, 1904.
Dana Keller │ via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
49. Elizabeth Taylor, 1956
via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
50. Two Boxers after a fight.
via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
51. Clint Eastwood, 1962
via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
52. Sophia Loren and Jayne Mansfield.
via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
53. Clint Eastwood working on his 1958 Jag XK 120 in 1960.
via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
54. Cornell Rowing Team, 1907
Ryan Urban │ via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
55. View from the Capitol in Nashville, 1864
via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
56. Baltimore Slums, 1938
Jordan J. LLoyd │ via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
57. C.S. Lewis, ca. 1950
Dana Keller │ via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
58. Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels scowls at a Jewish photographer, 1933.
via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
59. Henry Ford, 1919
via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
60. A car crash in Washington D.C. around 1921.
via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
61. President Lincoln with Major General McClernand and Allan Pinkerton at Antietam in 1862.
via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
62. Boys buying flowers in 1908
Dana Keller │ via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
63. 1920s Australian mugshots from the New South Wales Police Dept.
Dana Keller │ via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
64. An RAF pilot getting a haircut while reading a book between missions.
via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
65. Malcolm X chats with Muhammad Ali – New York 1963
via Reddit/ColorizedHistory
Credit: Reddit / Colorized History