Old photos of people grouped by gender

Short but stunning gallery of high-resolution old photos of people grouped together by gender.

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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nanuq

“I *don’t* like the way the sailor is looking at that goat in #3!”

Don’t be cruel. Not every sailor is lucky enough to have a dance partner.
glaborous immolate

The Yale students are clearly grouped by sex, thankyewverymuch
Gloria

Re: the Yale varsity line-up

*Hello*, gents!
Marya

These people are grouped by sex, not by gender. . . unless I am missing something and there are cross dressers among them.
Here, it’s simple: You are born with sex, you acquire gender.
M
- Xopher
  
  Because there MIGHT be crossdressers among them and you haven’t seen their genitalia (not that even that is an absolute determiner of sex, but pass on, pass on), they are clearly grouped by the social construct of gender and not by sex!
dbarak

What’s interesting about this is that the odds of these pictures being grouped by sex versus some other criteria is 50/50. Oooooh. ; )
jaytkay

Those kitchen women are [almost] all HAWT!!1!

The sailors dancing are on the landship U.S.S. Recruit in Union Square, NYC.
- dbarak
  
  That’s a BIG USS Recruit! There’s a smaller one here in San Diego, from when Naval Training Center was in operation. It’s been designated as a national landmark or something like that.
  
  http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2150/2415462097_2dd03966c3.jpg
  
  http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_2i6ksSyS50M/SDDnBHdewvI/AAAAAAAAAwo/nTz9IbDPheY/s320/(Small%2Bfile)%2BUSS%2BRecruit.jpg
- freshacconci
  
  Exactly what I was thinking, in particular the one on the far left and the one sitting on the left. I love flapper hair-dos. Would totally still work today.
tresser

that kid have a cigarette hanging outta his mouth? and i lol at movies that have people smoking on planes and trains. this is a whole other level of lulz
Patrick Dodds

The hair on the woman sat in front of the table on the left is beautiful, both the cut and the condition.
- dbarak
  
  You should see her now…
TEKNA2007

They’re not that different from you, are they? Same haircuts. Full of hormones, just like you. Invincible, just like you feel. The world is their oyster. They believe they’re destined for great things, just like many of you, their eyes are full of hope, just like you. Did they wait until it was too late to make from their lives even one iota of what they were capable? Because, you see gentlemen, these boys are now fertilizing daffodils.
Anonymous

I *don’t* like the way the sailor is looking at that goat in #3!
Mitch

Well, Manya, in the first two photos we do not know what anyone’s reproductive organs look like, but it seems pretty clear that one group is living as boys and the other is living as girls, regardless of the configuration of their unseen genitalia, so Mark was indeed correct in saying that the people in the pictures are grouped by gender.
MitchSchaft

I’m so tired of seeing that Japanese guy on the right menu.
- dbarak
  
  What’s really spooky is that the Japanese guy is tired you you watching HIM! ; )
dole

shorpy.com is an awesome, awesome archive of high res old photos similar to these. i’d guess most are from 1880-1930 and photos from 1950-1960 notable enough are included. frequently updated and a vast time killer. highly recommended.
gniobboing

The one of the sailors dancing together is, well….beyond wonderful. Look how comfortable they are with each other. Look at how unselfconsciously close they are holding each other. It is inconceivable that an image like this could be taken today. Even if it were recreated today, I doubt the guys involved could manage to suppress their unease and insecurity, likely expressed by exaggerated mocking affectation and excessively wide smiles. None of that is present in this image.

I think it’s important to think about not only what has been gained, but also what has been lost in the push for gay rights over the last half-century. Back in a time when homosexuality was so unthinkable (let alone unspeakable) throughout society, where such things officially ‘don’t exist’, strangely, ironically, I think a space opens up for this kind of same-sex affection. It must’ve been thought in a way that “well it couldn’t possibly be THAT”, so it was permitted. Today, where homosexuality is pretty much out in the open, or at least talked about as being such, two heterosexual males wouldn’t be caught dead even so much as touching each others hand. When such inadvertent contact does occur, it’s immediately followed with the obligatory expressions of disgust to let one another know they’re not “that way” (witness the recent retarded trend of saying “no homo” during such rituals). I’m not lamenting the incredible, fantastic gains gay rights have made over the past years because of any of this of course. That would obviously be stupid (the gay rights movement itself obviously didn’t cause this shift in views, underlying religious superstition did). But I do hope one day that straight guys realize that the gay rights movement is for them too. Men have lost the freedom to express the kind of simple affection between each other as shown in that photo. It’s a unique and beautiful form of human interaction, and when the gay rights movement is finally finished and the stigma of homosexual love vanquished, I hope they can see that they are free to experience those things once again. It’s a little bit of a mawkish cliche by now, but it’s true that a change in culture which frees some people, really does actually free all people.

For more of this sort of thing (much, much more): http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=vintage%20male%20affection&w=all
- Micah
  
  @18: Case in point.
DarthVain

LOL… 3 out of 10 Kid smokers agree the morning Telegraph is for me!