Discover the True Stories Behind 8 Historical Photographs

Ever since the invention of photography, photographs have played an important part in documenting history. Although they are just as subject to people’s biases as anything else, by preserving a precise moment in time, they can present an interesting perspective on world events of the past and present. So many historic photographs have become iconic for various reasons, and have graced the pages of textbooks or inspired movements across the world. But what are the stories behind these photos and the people and events they depict? Read on to discover the true story behind eight historical photographs.

In either 1826 or 1827, French inventor Nicéphore Niépce took the world’s oldest known photograph. As its name suggests, the photo is of Niépce’s view from a window at his Le Gras estate in Saint-Loup-de-Varennes, France. He created the image using the centuries-old camera obscura technique which involves light from outside projecting through a small hole in a darkened room. According to the laws of physics, the rays of light then replicate the image of whatever is outside upside-down and reverse left to right.

Niépce, like many other inventors in his day, had been experimenting to find a way to make the image created by his camera obscura permanent. He was able to do this with the image of his window view by projecting the image onto a metal plate that he coated with a natural form of asphalt that hardened and kept the image of brightly lit areas. In order for the process to work, a very long exposure time would have been needed, with researchers estimating times between eight hours and several days.

Despite his achievement, it took over a century for Niépce to be properly honored for his contributions to the development of photography. In 1827, he submitted a paper on his photography process to the British Royal Society, but received no recognition since he refused to reveal how he made the image. It was only in 1952, when historians rediscovered View from the Window at Le Gras, that Niépce’s work became globally recognized.

Yes! I also want to get the Early Bird Books newsletter featuring great deals on ebooks.

Taken during the Crimean War, British photographer Roger Fenton’s photo of a road scattered with cannonballs is widely considered to be one of the most famous early images of warfare. Its title references British soldiers' nickname for the area, itself a reference to a Biblical passage: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I feel no evil." But what makes The Valley of the Shadow of Death especially notable is the fact that it may be one of the first “fake” photos in history.

The more famous image is of the road covered in cannonballs, but there is a second one where the road is clear and the cannonballs can be seen in a ditch off to the side. For years, it was hotly debated which one was the authentic image portraying what the valley of death really looked like. Did Roger Fenton and his aides move the cannonballs into the road for dramatic effect? In 2007, documentary filmmaker Errol Morris set out to find the answer.

In a three-part piece for The New York Times, he detailed his investigation. He interviewed experts on both sides of the argument, traveled to Sevastopol in Crimea to examine the spot where the photos were taken, and did a detailed analysis of both images. Ultimately, Morris and his team came to the conclusion that the photo with the cannonballs on the road was taken second, based on five small rocks that moved further down into the ditch in the second picture. Fenton had indeed moved the cannonballs onto the road and one of history’s first images of war was staged.

This photograph of a slave whose back is covered in scars from years of whipping has come to be one of the most famous images of the brutality of American slavery. The wider American public first saw the image in July 1863 when it was published in an issue of Harper’s Weekly. The image shocked readers and galvanized many Northerners to throw their support behind the abolitionist cause. When faced with an image as stark as The Scourged Back, it was impossible for anyone to downplay or ignore the evils of slavery.

Despite the photo’s importance in Civil War history, little is known for certain about its subject. The article in Harper’s that accompanied the picture claimed that the man was a slave named Gordon who escaped a Mississippi plantation and went on to join the Union Army. But other descriptions of the photo that had been written in abolitionist publications prior to the Harper’s article describe the subject of the photo as being from Louisiana, and one copy of the photo gives him the name Peter. It’s entirely possible the full story of The Scourged Back’s subject will never be known, but the photo still has an important place in history for waking the Union up to the horrific realities of slavery.

Photographer Dorothea Lange’s photo Migrant Mother has become emblematic of the struggles of ordinary people during the Great Depression. In 1936, Lange was employed by the Resettlement Administration, a New Deal agency, to document the lives of the thousands of workers that had been displaced from their homes in states like Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl. While taking photographs in a camp of migrant workers in Nipomo, California, Lange was drawn to a hungry mother and her children. She chatted with the woman briefly and then took the photo which would later be published in the San Francisco News.

No one knew the identity of the woman in the famous photo until 1978, when Florence Owens Thompson wrote to the Modesto Bee newspaper to tell her own story. Thompson, the daughter of two Cherokee Native Americans, was not actually a migrant worker who had to sell her tires to pay for food, as Lange wrote of her later. She had been living in California since the mid-1920s and was a widow who was working to support her six children. The only reason they were in the camp was that their car had broken down, and she never sold the tires.

The family continued to move around California until after World War II, when Florence Owens moved to Modesto and married hospital administrator George Thompson. After she identified herself, Thompson explained to reporters that she felt exploited by Lange’s photo, as she had become a poster child for an experience that wasn’t hers.

One of the most well-known photos associated with the Holocaust is this image of a young Jewish boy and several others being arrested during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943. Immediately after the photo was taken, the group was deported to either the Majdanek or Treblinka extermination camps in Poland. For many, the boy came to represent all children victimized by the Holocaust. As such, people have spent years trying to discover his identity.

The photo was included in an album of photos taken by Nazi soldiers to document their suppression of the uprising and their ensuing deportation of Warsaw’s Jewish population. The only person in the photo who has ever been identified is Josef Blösche, the Nazi soldier pointing a gun at the boy. Blösche was executed for war crimes in East Germany in 1969.

Not much is known about the boy in the photograph except for the fact that he was probably under 10 years old since he is not wearing a Star of David patch or armband. The most publicized claimant to his identity was Dr. Tsvi Nussbaum, a physician who was living in New York when he came forward in 1982. However, his story of being arrested in July of 1943 does not line up with when the photo was taken, as the uprising had been quelled by May. Research continues, but even if the boy’s identity is never discovered, he will always be a symbol for the millions of people who fell victim to the Nazi regime.

This iconic photo from World War II is by photographer Joe Rosenthal, who captured soldiers raising an American flag on top of Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima. From left to right, the Marines pictured are Private First Class Ira Hayes, Private First Class Harold Schultz, Sergeant Michael Strank, Private First Class Franklin Sousley, Private First Class Harold Keller, and Corporal Harlon Block. It took until 2019 for all of the men to be correctly identified.

Although the image has come to represent American victory in the face of incredible odds, the photo was actually taken over a month before the battle ended. Strank, Sousley, and Block were all killed in action later in the battle. The image went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Photography and served as the basis for the Marine Corps War Memorial located in a park near Arlington National Cemetery. Constructed in 1954, the memorial honors all American Marines who have died in service since 1775.

Taken by Cuban photographer Alberto Korda, this photo of Argentine Marxist Revolutionary fighter Che Guevara is an iconic image that has been been associated with leftist movements around the world for decades. Its title, Guerrillero Heroico, translates to “heroic guerrilla fighter”. Korda took the photo of Guevara at a memorial service for workers that had been killed when a ship carrying grenades and munitions exploded in Havana harbor. Korda explained that he was drawn to the emotionality in Guevara’s face, a mixture of anger, pain, and stoicism.

The photo became far more notable in the wake of Guevara’s death in 1967, when leftist fighters and sympathizers commemorated him as a martyr. Since then, the image has become a go-to symbol for Marxists that's just as iconic as the hammer and sickle. Though some have pointed out that the widespread presence of Guevara’s image on t-shirts and other mass-produced items stands in direct contrast to his anti-capitalist ideals.

Yes! I also want to get the Early Bird Books newsletter featuring great deals on ebooks.

A defining moment in the history of protest in sports came at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City. After winning gold and bronze medals respectively in the 200-meter race, American runners Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists while wearing black gloves as the American national anthem played. Their raised fists were widely recognized as a symbol of the Black Power movement and were meant to show solidarity with oppressed Black people all over the world. But in the fraught political climate of the late 1960s, Smith and Carlos were vilified and shunned from the sports world.

Human rights had been a major issue at the 1968 Olympics, as the Vietnam War raged on and as South Africa continued to uphold their brutal Apartheid system. Both Smith and Carlos were major leaders in the Olympic Project for Human Rights and knew they wanted to make some form of a statement at the games, especially in the wake of the killing of hundreds of student protesters by the Mexican military just 10 days before the games began. When they stepped onto the podium, neither of them wore shoes, and Carlos covered up the “USA” on his uniform to display his disappointment with his country’s slow pace at advancing civil rights. Australian runner Peter Norman won silver and joined them in wearing Olympic Project for Human Rights badges as a way to show support.

Smith and Carlos faced repercussions almost immediately and were suspended from the US Olympic team. They faced death threats when they returned to the US, and Smith found that his military career had been all but ended. Scholars have theorized that the consequences were so severe because American leaders felt they had been embarrassed in front of a global audience. Support for Smith and Carlos’s demonstration has only grown over time, and the two were honored by President Barack Obama for their actions in 2016.

Sources: University of Texas at Austin, Public Domain Review, American Nineteenth Century History, History.com, NPR, Smithsonian Magazine

Modern History