by James Wallace Harris, Sunday, July 22, 2018
This post is for Linda. I told her about the growing trend on Facebook for sharing all kinds of old photos, illustrations, ads, paintings, and drawings, and she suggested I do a blog post about it. I’ve joined several groups on Facebook where members post images, usually from the 20th century, but sometimes older. I assume it’s nostalgia-driven, but it might just a love for creative artwork.
The first group I joined was The Golden Age of Illustrations which collects book and magazine illustrations, often from children’s books, but adult stories as well. Here’s a few of them. This group has over 70,000 members.
Over at Mid Century Advertising, the appeal is partly the art but mostly the memories. Here’s a varied sampling that doesn’t really do the group’s wide interest justice. Part of the appeal is to remember forgotten objects. Part of the appeal is to remember a different way of life. This group currently has 35,806 members.
One of my favorite groups is Space Opera Pulp because I love science fiction. This group has 11,813 members, on the small size compared to the others. When I was growing up in the 1960s I didn’t know any other science fiction fans. Evidently, there were way more than I ever knew. I guess science fiction was a guilty pleasure until Star Trek legitimized the genre.
Another group that focuses on book and magazine illustrations is Illustration Art Archives. It has over 15,000 members. This group loves full-size color illustrations. Most are from old magazines, but some are from books. By the way, adult books used to have interior illustrations. This groups especially seems to admire a dramatic scene.
The last group I’ll mention is Hi Resolution Paintings, where over 40,000 people love to share high-resolution copies of fine art. I like to save high-resolution images for my 4k monitor’s desktop background. This group has some of the nostalgic images of the other groups, but I like it for the old realistic fine art paintings.
There are many more visually nostalgic groups over at Facebook. New ones pop up all the time. In a way, it makes sense since Facebook is visually oriented. But most people post photos about recent activities. Isn’t it odd that so many people want to post images of things they remember from a long ago that isn’t personal? It might be an age thing. Most of the people I know on Facebook are over 60. Maybe it’s just a delight to see something so vivid and bright that was only a dark dim memory.
Or maybe, in our troubled times, old images are more joyful than the depressing images we see in the news.
JWH
Auxiliary Memory 
I think in these days of relative isolation (lots of ways and reasons) it’s cool just to be able to share. Many people have these interests which might not be common among their f2f friends or community but they can find outlet on Facebook. I belong to a Rosemaling group over there – Norwegian rose painting – Some folks actually do it themselves, others (moi) just appreciate it. We share the interest with visuals.
In our case there’s new and old works – a lot of antiques – so it’s not just nostalgia. For me what used to be a solo interest is now a shared interest. 🙂
You brought back a lot of memories with that WINSTON SCIENCE FICTION illustration. When I was a kid, I loved those juvenile SF novels with the cool covers and those interior illustrations!
I suspect you’re right about older people retreating into the Past. A recent WALL STREET JOURNAL article showed that many Baby Boomers have little savings for Retirement. Social Security isn’t going to be enough to live on (if it survives the current Administration’s destruction of the social safety net). You can see why a yearning for Better Days is growing as the Future looks dire.
cool
Wow. That’s almost – but net quite – enough to make me consider joining F-book.
“NOT quite”
I keep looking back over this post. I’m going to bring my kindle when I see you and get help signing on.