10 Amazing Historical Photos
History Is Often Challenging And Should Be
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As a historian, I have always been fascinated by primary historical documents such as journals, diaries, letters, artwork, and architecture—political, church, personal records, as well as photography over the last two hundred years. These ten amazing historical images each tell a story as straightforward or as complex as you want to see. They indicate a moment in time and also how the world as we experience it has changed with time.
Mokomokai: Heads Of The Māori
The native Māori people of New Zealand preserved the severed heads of the fallen. Known as mokomokai, the heads were chopped off, boiled, smoked, dried in the Sun, and dipped in shark oil.
When the British moved in during the 1840s, they plundered the mokomokai. Major General Horatio Gordon Robley (1840–1930) served in the British Army during the New Zealand Land Wars in the 1860s and stole 35 heads for himself. Outrageous today, obviously not back then.
Postmortem Portraits
Children's life expectancies in Victorian England were extremely low due to disease and lack of medical treatment. And because the relatively new use of photography was costly, most people could never get their portraits taken.
However, for some, when young children passed away, their parents often dressed them in their best clothes for their first and last portrait, creating strange lifelike images of their children who had already died.
Children For Sale
This photo from 1948 illustrates how much poverty can destroy a family. The Chalifoux family faced eviction from their Chicago apartment and desperately needed money. And so, the…
