Photos Show What Life of American Teenagers Looked Like in the 1980s

The 1980s may feel like yesterday, but the teenagers of the 1980s are now unfortunately distinctly middle-aged.

If you’ve tried to explain to a modern child the significance of a pencil to a cassette tape, and they don’t even have a clue what a cassette is, then welcome home.

Take a look at these photos from tshiverd to see what life of American teenagers looked like in the 1980s.

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15 Adorable Childhood Photos of Janet Jackson in the 1970s

Singer, songwriter and actress Janet Jackson was born on May 16, 1966, in Gary, Indiana. The youngest of nine children born to Katherine Esther and Joseph Walter Jackson, she grew up in the affluence of a show business family. Her five brothers — Jackie, Tito, Marlon, Jermaine and Michael — signed a contract with Motown Records in 1968 and would go on to rule the charts as The Jackson Five, with such hits as “I Want You Back,” “The Love You Save,” “ABC” and “Dancing Machine.”

Janet Jackson first appeared onstage in April 1974, singing and doing impressions alongside brother Randy in the Jackson family’s Las Vegas act. In 1976, she appeared on The Jacksons, a summer replacement television show. Her performance earned her the attention of a producer who hired her to play Penny, a regular on the TV comedy series Good Times, from 1977-79.

She continued her television work in the short-lived A New Kind of Family (1979), the sitcom Different Strokes (1984-85) and the teen drama Fame (1984-85), based at a New York City performing arts high school.

Here, a selection of 15 adorable photos of Janet Jackson when she was young in the 1970s:

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Baby Bounces in Safety Chair, 1935

A safety chair which combines the enjoyment of a spring ride for the baby with assurance to the mother that he will not get hurt provides a solution to the problem of baby tending for the busy housewife.

Left: The chair used in an auto. Right: The safety chair is supported by a spring leaf slipped into a slot on the floor.

The chair is built high to support the baby’s back and is set on a strong steel spring leaf fastened to a slot in the floor. The baby’s legs straddle a hobby-horse head which prevent him from falling out of the front. Stirrups provide a natural rest for the child’s feet.

The spring of the safety chair may also be slipped into a slot in the auto floor, and it will eliminate all heavy shocks to provide baby with a smooth, comfortable ride in spite of rough and rutty roads.

36 Cool Photos of Teenage Couples in Prom Dresses From the 1980s

From pretty in pink to bold in black, ’80s teenage girls put a lot of time and money into finding just the perfect prom dresses for prom, homecoming, or another high school formal dance.

The ’80s prom dresses are memorable, dramatic and fun. Big puffy sleeves, bright colors, velvet tops, bubble skirts, giant bows, lace ruffles, and more...

Here below is a set of cool photos that shows what prom dresses looked like in the 1980s.

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Portraits of Young ‘White’ Slaves From New Orleans From the 1860s

Photographs of emancipated children were sold to raise money for the education of freed slaves in New Orleans. The children featured in the photographs drew attention to the fact that slavery was not solely a matter of color. If a child’s mother was an enlsaved person, then he or she was enslaved as well.

The group of emancipated slaves whose portraits were brought by Colonel Hanks and Mr. Phillip Bacon from New Orleans, where they were set free by General Butler. Mr. Bacon went to New Orleans with army, and was for eighteen months employed as Assistant-Superintendent of Freedmen, under the care of Colonel Hanks. He established the first school in Louisiana for emancipated slaves, and these children were among his pupils. He will soon return to Louisiana to resume his labor.

The following article appeared in Harper’s Weekly on January 30, 1864. The short biographies contained in the article offer us a rare (and possibly unique) record of enslaved children.

Rebecca Huger is eleven years old, and was a slave in her father’s house, the special attendant of a girl a little older than herself. To all appearance she is perfectly white. Her complexion, hair, and features show not the slightest trace of negro blood. In the few months during which she has been at school she has learned to read well, and writes as neatly as most children of her age. Her mother and grandmother live in New Orleans, where they support themselves comfortably by their own labor. The grandmother, an intelligent mulatto, told Mr. Bacon that she had "raised" a large family of children, but these are all that are left to her.

Rosina Downs is not quite seven years old. She is a fair child, with blonde complexion and silky hair. Her father is in the rebel army. She has one sister as white as herself, and three brothers who are darker. Her mother, a bright mulatto, lives in New Orleans in a poor hut, and has hard work to support her family.

Charles Taylor is eight years old. His complexion is very fair, his hair light and silky. Three out of five boys in any school in New York are darker than he. Yet this white boy, with his mother, as he declares, has been twice sold as a slave. First by his father and "owner," Alexander Wethers, of Lewis County, Virginia, to a slave-trader named Harrison, who sold them to Mr. Thornhill of New Orleans. This man fled at the approach of our army, and his slaves were liberated by General Butler. The boy is decidedly intelligent, and though he has been at school less than a year he reads and writes very well. His mother is a mulatto; she had one daughter sold into Texas before she herself left Virginia, and one son who, she supposes, is with his father in Virginia. These three children, to all appearance of unmixed white race, came to Philadelphia last December, and were taken by their protector, Mr. Bacon, to the St. Lawrence Hotel on Chestnut Street. Within a few hours, Mr. Bacon informed me, he was notified by the landlord that they must therefore be colored persons, and he kept a hotel for white people. From this hospitable establishment the children were taken to the "Continental," where they were received without hesitation.

Wilson Chinn is about 60 years old, he was “raised” by Isaac Howard of Woodford County, Kentucky. When 21 years old he was taken down the river and sold to Volsey B. Marmillion, a sugar planter about 45 miles above New Orleans. This man was accustomed to brand his negroes, and Wilson has on his forehead the letters “V. B. M.” Of the 210 slaves on this plantation 105 left at one time and came into the Union camp. Thirty of them had been branded like cattle with a hot iron, four of them on the forehead, and the others on the breast or arm.

Augusta Boujey is nine years old. Her mother, who is almost white, was owned by her half-brother, named Solamon, who still retains two of her children.

Mary Johnson was cook in her master’s family in New Orleans. On her left arm are scars of three cuts given to her by her mistress with a rawhide. On her back are scars of more than fifty cuts given by her master. The occasion was that one morning she was half an hour behind time in bringing up his five o’clock cup of coffee. As the Union army approached she ran away from her master, and has since been employed by Colonel Hanks as cook.

Isaac White is a black boy of eight years; but none the less intelligent than his whiter companions. He has been in school about seven months, and I venture to say that not one boy in fifty would have made as much improvement in that space of time.

Robert Whitehead—the Reverend Mr. Whitehead perhaps we ought to style him, since he is a regularly-ordained preacher—was born in Baltimore. He was taken to Norfolk, Virginia, by a Dr. A. F. N. Cook, and sold for $1525; from Norfolk he was taken to New Orleans where he was bought for $1775 by a Dr. Leslie, who hired him out as house and ship painter. When he had earned and paid over that sum to his master, he suggested that a small present for himself would be quite appropriate. Dr. Leslie thought the request reasonable, and made him a donation of a whole quarter of a dollar. The reverend gentleman can read and write well, and is a very stirring speaker. Just now he belongs to the church militant, having enlisted in the United States army.

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Lovely Vintage Photos of Kids With Their Pedal Cars

When the automobile made its appearance, the pedal car soon followed. Pedal car history goes back to the 1890s when most were modeled from the real cars on the road at the time. Since their conception, pedal cars were all kids wished for.

But at the turn of the century, their cost meant they were playthings for only wealthy families. With many families reeling from the financial devastation of The Great Depression, pedal cars were often toys for upper class children. Those not so fortunate played with basic homemade ride-on toys.

In the 1920s and 1930s the wealthy were catered to when it came to buying pedal cars since they were the primary buyers. No pedal cars were produced in the mid-1940s when all metal production was directed to the World War II effort.

Reaching the peak of popularity in the late 1920s and early 1930s, pedal cars experienced a resurgence in the 1950s to 1960s with chain-driven models. With postwar prosperity in the 1950s, pedal cars grew more popular and were available in all major stores. From the early 1920s through the late 1960s, pedal cars, like automobiles, were produced in many different models and colors.

Here below is a set of lovely found photos from Steve Given that shows vintage kids with their pedal cars in the past.

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Some Snaps of Renee Zellweger Rocked a Mullet in Her High School Days in the 1980s

Renee Kathleen Zellweger (born April 25, 1969) is an American actress. She graduated from Katy High School, in Katy, TX, in 1987, where she was active in cheerleading, among other activities.

With a gloriously awkward mullet hairstyle, it’s hard to imagine that this blonde Texan teenager would grow up to become a Hollywood actress. These snaps show Renee Zellweger as a fresh-faced teen with the big, bouncy hair popular in the 1980s.

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Strange Ads Featuring Images of Giant Babies Taking Over and Their Mini Mothers for Johnson’s Baby Products, ca. 1940s

These slightly terrifying ads featuring giant babies and tiny mothers are for Johnson’s Baby Oil & Baby Powder. They date from 1944-48.

In the ads, a giant baby exacts a vicious turnabout-is-fair-play revenge on his mother, who failed as a parent an a human being by using the wrong skin-care products on him.

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34 Rare and Amazing Childhood Photos of Prince Philip During the 1920s and 1930s

Queen Elizabeth’s husband Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, has died Friday at the age of 99. He was the longest-serving royal consort in British history and the oldest serving partner of a reigning monarch.​

“It is with deep sorrow that Her Majesty The Queen announces the death of her beloved husband, His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh,” reads a statement released by the royal family.

“His Royal Highness passed away peacefully this morning at Windsor Castle. Further announcements will be made in due course. The Royal Family join with people around the world in mourning his loss.”

In light of the sad news, we’re taking a look back at his childhood during the 1920s and 1930s:

Prince Philip was born Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark on June 10, 1921. His mother, the former Princess Alice of Battenberg, was a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria. Born at Windsor Castle, she was found to be profoundly deaf but learned to speak and lip-read in at least four languages. His father was Prince Andrew, fourth son of King George I of the Hellenes. The Greek royal family was anything but Greek; the King was born into the Danish royal family – the reason the dynasty is referred to as “of Greece and Denmark” – and at the time of Philip's birth the family was closely linked through marriage and descent to the royal families of Great Britain, Russia, Prussia, the Grand Duchy of Hesse and, of course, Denmark. His parents had married in 1903 and Philip had four considerably older sisters: Margarita, Theodora, Cécile, and Sophie.

The current Greek monarchy had only been established in 1863 and had often been at war, both internal and external. The were frequently at odds with their own often openly antagonistic government, and had fought a series of wars with their Balkan neighbors. And in 1917 at the height of World War I, the opposition of the government to the Royal Family's stance of neutrality eventually led to Philip's uncle, King Constantine I, being forced to abdicate. Most of the family would go into exile in Switzerland. As it turned out, they were recalled three years later, but at the time of Philip's birth in 1921, once more at war with the Turks, the régime was again faltering. In September of the following year King Constantine was forced to abdicate a second time, and three months later the eighteen-month-old prince and his immediate family left Greece aboard a British naval vessel. They settled in the Paris suburb of Saint-Cloud in a house lent to them by a wealthy relative, Princess George of Greece, née Princess Marie Bonaparte.

By the end of the decade, Princess Andrew had gradually succumbed to mental illness, suffering hyper-religious and sexual delusions, which was eventually diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenia. She would be institutionalized for some time and then spend several years living an itinerant existence in central Europe, incognito; her own mother was the only family member with whom she retained contact. From the summer of 1932 until the spring of 1937, Philip neither saw nor received any word from his mother, not even a birthday card. She would finally begin to reconnect with her family in 1937, when her son was fifteen.

In the meantime, in the space of eight months in 1930-31 when he was only ten years old, all four of his sisters married into German princely and grand ducal families. (Without the presence of their mother.) And, his parent’s marriage having crumbled under the weight of their enforced retirement and, later, the Princess’ illness, Philip’s father fairly abandoned the family, going to live aimlessly on the French Riviera in a series of apartments and hotel rooms with a series of mistresses.

Prince Philip had first been educated at the MacJannet American school in Paris, but in 1928 when he was seven, he was sent to England to attend Cheam School. Then, in 1933, he was sent to the progressive Schule Schloss Salem in Germany, which was supported by the family of his sister Theodora’s husband, Berthold, Margrave of Baden. That same year, the school’s Jewish founder was forced to flee Nazi Germany but founded Gordonstoun school in Scotland in the following year; after two terms at Salem, Philip would move to Gordonstoun, where he would graduate in 1939.

During his school days, from the age of seven to the age of eighteen, the young prince was effectively an orphan and homeless. When on school holiday or at times like Christmas, he was shuttled between relatives in England and Germany, often staying with his maternal grandmother, the Dowager Marchioness of Milford Haven, and her sons, George Mountbatten, 2nd Marquess of Milford Haven and Lord Louis Mountbatten. In the space left for one’s address in visitors’ books, he would write “of no fixed abode”.

He would later say matter-of-factly, “It’s simply what happened. The family broke up. My mother was ill, my sisters were married, my father was in the south of France. I just had to get on with it. You do. One does.” And when an interviewer had asked what language his family had spoken at home, he replied, “What do you mean, at home?”

In 1939 he joined the Royal Navy, the Second World War began, he met his future wife, then-Princess Elizabeth, for the first time – she was both a third cousin through Queen Victoria, and second cousin once removed through King Christian IX of Denmark; she was thirteen years old to his eighteen – and his future was set. Eight years later, in 1947, the two were married; their sixty-ninth anniversary is on the twentieth of this November.

With his mother, 1921.

Alice of Battenberg and infant son Prince Philip of Greece, 1921.

Circa 1922.

Prince Philip of Greece in July 1922.

July 1922.

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During 1950s Cold War, U.S Children Taught to Duck and Cover

After the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb in 1949, the American public was understandably nervous. They were aware of the destruction that individual atomic bombs did to the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But the general public did not know a lot yet about the dangers of radiation and fallout.

So, a new Federal Civil Defense Administration (FCDA) was set up in 1951 to educate – and reassure – the country that there were ways to survive an atomic attack from the Soviet Union. They commissioned a university study on how to achieve “emotion management” during the early days of the Cold War.

“Dropping immediately and covering exposed skin provide[s] protection against blast and thermal effects ... Immediately drop facedown. A log, a large rock, or any depression in the earth’s surface provides some protection. Close eyes. Protect exposed skin from heat by putting hands and arms under or near the body and keeping the helmet on. Remain facedown until the blast wave passes and debris stops falling. Stay calm, check for injury, check weapons and equipment damage, and prepare to continue the mission.” — US Army field manual FM 3–4 Chapter 4.

One of their approaches was to involve schools. Teachers in selected cities were encouraged to conduct air raid drills where they would suddenly yell, “Drop!” and students were expected to kneel down under their desks with their hands clutched around their heads and necks. Some schools even distributed metal “dog tags,” like those worn by World War II soldiers, so that the bodies of students could be identified after an attack.

The next logical step was to promote these “preparedness” measures around the country, and the FCDA decided the best way to do that was to commission an educational film that would appeal to children. In 1951, the agency awarded a contract for the production to a New York firm known as Archer Films.

Archer called in teachers to meet with them and got the endorsement of the National Education Association. An administrator at a private school in McLean, Virginia, mentioned that they had participated in the “duck and cover” drills. That was the first time the producers had heard the drills called that, and they thought the phrase would work as a title.

The producers went to work on a script that would combine live actors and an animated turtle to encourage kids to duck down to the ground and get under some form of cover – a desk, a table or next to a wall – if they ever saw a bright flash of light. The flash would presumably be produced by an atomic blast. The hero of the film was the animated Turtle named Bert who wore a pith helmet and quickly ducked his head into his shell when a monkey in a tree set off a firecracker nearby.

When Duck and Cover was completed in January 1952, its admonition perhaps could have saved some lives in the event of an atomic-bomb attack. Civil Defense officials liked the animated turtle and his monkey tormentor so much that they included the film in the “Alert America Convoy.” The convoy had 10 trucks and trailers that toured he country for nine months in 1952. Each vehicle contained civil defense dioramas, posters, 3-D models and a film theatre showing Duck and Cover and other educational movies. The theme was practical ways individuals could “beat the bomb.” According to the FCDA, 1.1 million people eventually saw the convoy exhibits.

At the same time, Duck and Cover was premiered to educators at a gala screening at a Manhattan movie theatre. From there, it was distributed to schools around the country by one of the largest educational film distributors. It was shown on television stations around the country, and some educated guesses put the TV audience in the tens of millions.

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