30 Vintage Photos From the 1890s
The 1890s marked the final stretch of the 19th century—a time of immense transformation around the globe. The world was entering a new industrial age, cities were expanding rapidly, and photography was becoming more accessible to the public.
From the streets of New York City to the plains of the American West, from royal portraits to working-class life, the lens of early photographers captured moments that now serve as some of the only visual records of a bygone world.
1. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show in 1890
2. Ellis Island Immigrants Arriving in 1892
3. A Nebraska homesteader family outside their home in 1892
4. Children Working in a Pennsylvania Coal Mine in 1893
5. Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee Parade in 1897
6. Crowded Streets of New York’s Lower East Side in 1895
7. A hot potato vendor in 1892
8. San Francisco’s Chinatown in 1896
9. A barber and his customer out in Utah – 1892
10. The Klondike Gold Rush Prospectors in 1898
11. The First Modern Subway Construction in Boston – 1895
12. Parisian Street Scene by Eugène Atget in 1898
13. Nikola Tesla in His Laboratory in 1899
14. Victorian-Era Bathing Suits in Coney Island – 1896
15. A couple of newsboys catch some shuteye in The Sun newspaper building, 1892
16. A flower seller in front of the Vienna opera house in 1890
17. London Street Vendors in 1893
18. Staten Island tennis players in 1892
19. Geronimo in a Studio Portrait – 1898
20. A French impressionist painter and his dog in France in 1892
21. Park Row looking southwest toward Broadway in New York City in 1892
22. Japanese Geisha Portrait from 1890s
23. Czar Nicholas II with His Family in 1896
24. The classroom of Miss Kate Hobart in 1892
25. A Woman on a Safety Bicycle – 1895
26. An orange grove packing house in California in 1892
27. Schoolchildren in Rural Kansas – 1891
28. The laying of electric cables in Baldwin Street, Bristol, 1893
29. The Chicago World’s Fair of 1893, Istanbul
30. A picnic at McKay Bluff, Nelson, 1892
