this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2026
42 points (97.7% liked)

HistoryPhotos

1166 readers
221 users here now

HistoryPhotos is for photographs (or, if it can be found, film) of the past, recent or distant! Give us a little snapshot of history!

Rules

  1. Be respectful and inclusive.
  2. No harassment, hate speech, or trolling.
  3. Foster a continuous learning environment.
  4. No genocide or atrocity denialism.
  5. Photos MUST be at LEAST 10 years old, and ideally over 20. We appreciate that we are living through events which will become history, but this is ultimately not a comm for news or current affairs, but events which have occurred some time in the past.

Related Communities:

founded 7 months ago
MODERATORS
Deceptichum@quokk.au
sga@piefed.social
PugJesus@piefed.social
42
Kitten with radio headphones, UK?, 1926 (media.piefed.social)
submitted 1 day ago by PugJesus@piefed.social to c/historyphotos@piefed.social
3 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.social 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That looks like the work of photographer Harry Whittier Frees. More examples below:

My family used to have one or more picture books of his, I'm thinking maybe from 90-110yrs ago.

Even as a kid I found them slightly disturbing in the way the animals were posed. (were they even alive?) If in vivo, I hope they weren't mistreated too much. A lot of those outfits look tight and overheating to me...

[–] AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Apparently a lot of Victorian photographs of kittens were of dead/taxidermied ones, as the film they had wasn’t fast enough to capture live kittens.

[–] JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.social 2 points 1 day ago

Sadly makes sense for the Victorian Age, altho I understand that by the 1910's, short and instant exposures were available in several cameras.

Frees being a successful, popular photographer, I would tend to think he had access to the newer tech. That still leaves the issue of what state his animals were actually in. I almost don't want to know.