Last Updated on October 7, 2025 by Matt Staff
In this collection of 49 images, we’re able to catch a glimpse of a world in full exciting motion. We can see faces as they watch the world’s first airplanes take off, streets aglow with new electric lights, and then cities just as they begin to rise into the modern age. Each photo tells its own story of hard work, joy, and the determination that ultimately shaped the world that we live in today.
Together, they remind us of what it looked like when the future was just taking off. Let’s take a look at 49 photos from the very first decade of the 20th century.
1. Broadway, New York City, 1900
2. One of the earliest mirror selfies, 1900
3. The pub used to let you take a drink to go in 1900
4. Demonstrating the sheer size of a Giant Redwood tree, 1900
5. Mark Twain, having a seat in his garden, 1900
6. Stephan Bibrowski, a Polish man born with Hypertrichosis, 1901
7. Lifeguarding in Brighton Beach, New York, 1901
8. Your standard female fishing outfit in 1901
9. Getting down at the Old Fiddlers Content, 1901
10. Franklin D. Roosevelt taking a break during crew at Harvard, 1901
11. They didn’t make snowmen in 1902; they made snow titans
12. Teddy Roosevelt, no microphone needed to silence the crowd, 1902
13. Getting ready to send off this locomotive, 1902
14. The Smith College women’s basketball team, 1902
15. Theo Roosevelt and John Muir at Yosemite National Park, 1903
16. Fanny Cochrane Smith singing into her phonograph in 1903
17. Mark Twain and his Colt Model 1903
18. The world’s first powered flight, December 17th, 1903
19. Building Times Square, 1903
20. A woman dressed up as Batgirl in 1904, 57 years before the comic character even existed
21. The Oglala warrior Red Hawk, letting his horse grab a drink in Badlands, South Dakota
22. “The more I learn about people, the more I like my dog,” -Mark Twain
23. A large immigrant family at Ellis Island, 1904
24. A dinner party at the Hotel Astor, 1904
25. The 1905 World Series
26. A 1905 ad for Coca-Cola
27. Check out the size of this log cabin in Portland, Oregon
28. The Duchess of Bedford practicing Jiu Jitsu, 1905
29. Watching as the horses graze, 1905
30. The Times Building, New York, 1906
31. Nobel laureates Pierre Curie, Marie Curie, and their daughter Irene Joliot-Curie in 1906
32. The daughters of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, 1906
33. Unloading a banana boat at the Port of New York, 1906
34. Observing a massive split in the earth from a 7.8 magnitude earthquake along the San Andreas fault, 1906
35. Steamboats on the Mississippi River, 1907
36. George Hackenshmidt, the man who created the modern bench press and hack squat, 1907
37. Mark Twain holding a kitten in Central Park, New York, 1907
38. Harry Houdini, standing on the edge of Harvard Bridge, about to dive into the water while chained, 1908
39. An 11-year-old coal miner after a tough shift in the mines, 1908
40. The beach was just as crowded in Atlantic City in 1908 as it is today
41. “My great-grandfather, impressed with himself after building this homestead in South Dakota, 1909”
42. A Coca-Cola company delivery truck in Knoxville, 1909
43. Pistol dueling as an Olympic sport, 1909
44. American explorer Robert Edwin Peary Sr., in arctic furs, 1909
45. Rush hour in Chicago, 1909
46. Hanging out in a college dorm room in 1910
47. Forging the chain for the Titanic’s anchor, 1910
48. A colorized photo of a day at the beach, 1910
49. The interior of a New York City subway car in 1910
Want to see more content from the early 1900s?
Check out 20 Colorized Photos From 1905, or take a look at 15 Colorized Photos That Capture the Wild Side of the 1920s. Finally, if you want to see infamous gangsters from the 1930s, check out 20 Infamous 1930s Gangsters Who Ruled the Era.
