Can you identify the decade from a single photograph?

Every photograph is a time capsule. The clothing, the technology, the grain of the film; they all give it away if you know what to look for. These are archival images pulled from NASA, the Library of Congress, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Openverse public collection.

Look at each one before reading the reveal.

Photo 1

1960s

This is Gordon Converse, a photojournalist, photographed in the Oval Office just two days after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The image comes from the Openverse public collection. The decade tells itself in the film quality, the Oval Office decor as it appeared in the first days of the Johnson administration, and the style of the camera equipment visible in the frame. Lyndon B. Johnson had been sworn in aboard Air Force One on November 22, 1963. The country was still processing what had happened. Converse was there to document the transition.

Image credit: The MET open access gallery

Photo 2

1990s

These are dresses by Jean Paul Gaultier, from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection. The caption in the Met’s records describes them as “more conceptual than cozy, sacrificing a toasty warm wrap to a more delicate idea of deconstruction.” The giveaway is the aesthetic — Gaultier’s deconstructivist approach to knitwear was a signature of 1990s fashion, when French designers were deliberately questioning what garments were for and what they were supposed to look like. The silhouettes and styling confirm the decade.

Photo 3

1970s

This is the recovery of the Apollo 13 crew in the South Pacific Ocean on April 17, 1970. NASA ID S70-35610. John L. Swigert Jr., command module pilot, is already in the life raft with his back to the camera. Fred W. Haise Jr., lunar module pilot, is stepping into the raft facing the camera. James A. Lovell Jr., commander, is leaving the spacecraft in the background. The Apollo 13 Command Module splashed down at 12:07 p.m. CST, concluding one of the most dangerous missions in NASA history. An oxygen tank in the service module had exploded two days into the flight, forcing the crew to use the lunar module as a lifeboat. The lunar landing was canceled. The astronauts survived.

Photo 4

1950s

This is Gerry Mulligan’s Sextet, photographed in the 1950s. Left to right: Bob Brookmeyer, Dave Bailey, Bill Crow, Zoot Sims, Oliver Beener and Gerry Mulligan. The image comes from the Library of Congress Performing Arts collection. The decade indicators are the formal attire, the black-and-white film stock, the specific instruments visible, and the compositional style typical of jazz photography from that period. Mulligan was one of the defining figures of cool jazz — the Gerry Mulligan Quartet had become famous in 1952, and the sextet represented an expanded version of his working band through the mid-to-late 1950s.

Photo 5

1980s

This is a Library of Congress photograph documenting an INS operation at JFK airport, taken June 13, 1984. The INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) was the federal agency responsible for immigration enforcement before it was reorganized into ICE and USCIS after 2003. The decade indicators are the specific style of the uniforms, the airport interior design (JFK terminal architecture from that era is distinctive), and the documentary photography style characteristic of government record-keeping in the early 1980s.

The bottom line

Five photographs. Five decades. A jazz session from the 1950s, a presidential transition in 1963, a space rescue in 1970, an airport enforcement operation in 1984, and a fashion statement from the 1990s. The clothes and the technology give away the era every time, though sometimes it takes a moment to notice what you’re actually looking at.

Ask us! What questions do you have about content, strategy, pop culture, lifestyle, wellness, history or more? We may use your question in an upcoming article!

Want to Partner
with MediaFeed?

Can you identify the decade from a single photograph?