33 Photos That Show What Life Looked Like in 1979
1979 had a lot going on. The Iran hostage crisis. Three Mile Island. The Soviets moving into Afghanistan. But most people weren't living inside the headlines. They were loading the coal furnace before school, sitting on the stoop with the cousins, and trying to talk their mom into a Kiss cake for their birthday.
This is that 1979. The one that lived in shoeboxes, glove compartments, and the back of somebody's junk drawer. The trucker in the cowboy hat, the bingo woman with a stack of cards, the kid who dressed as a water heater for Halloween because nobody told him he couldn't. Forty-six years later, it still looks pretty good from here.
"Summer 1979. Me and the old man sitting down for lunch."
The swim cap stayed on for lunch, which tells you everything about whose rules were in effect that summer.
"When my first husband wouldn't smile for the camera."
She found a solution.
"Alien costume my dad made for my brother in 1979"
Alien came out in May of 1979, and somebody's dad went straight to the garage and got to work. It landed at #7 on our list of the 50 best movies of the 1970s.
"Two kids from my high school at a house party"
The shirt is doing a lot of explaining, the tapestry asks more questions than it answers, and the guy in the Hawaiian shirt has fully made peace with wherever the night is going.
This kid in 1979 dressed up as a water heater for Halloween
Nobody told him to do this, nobody asked him to do this, and judging by the commitment to the costume, nobody could have talked him out of it either.
Traffic on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles, 1979
The Strip is wide open, the cars are moving, and Eddie Money, Cher, and Judy Collins are up on the billboards watching it all go by like gods who never have to merge.
Kids playing with a fire escape and old mattress in the Lower East Side of Manhattan in 1979
The mattress was already there. That's all the permission you need.
Fans in the stands at Tiger Stadium in Detroit
He's a super guy, he's lost, and he's got the glasses to make both of those things your problem.
"Me on Christmas morning in 1979"
The instructions are just suggestions, but he's reading them anyway, just to be sure.
All the kids posing on the slide with their dog
Five kids, one dog, and a backyard big enough to get lost in — which was exactly the point.
"My cousin eating McDonald's in 1979"
I think it's safe to say that she's loving it.
Also, while you're here, you should check out our nostalgic list of 20 discontinued McDonald's menu items you'll never see again.
A trucker wearing a cowboy hat in 1979
The cab is his office, the highway is his commute, and he has absolutely no interest in your opinion about either.
Fish for dinner and the kids expressions says it all
Mom caught it, mom's thrilled about it, and the kids have already decided they're not eating tonight.
"My 13th birthday in 1979. Mom made me the best cake ever."
A Kiss cake in teal and pink frosting, made from scratch by your mom. Thirteen never felt so good.
"My mom looking like a queen on her wedding day in 1979"
The peacock chair was the right call. She knew exactly what she was doing.
"My bus driver in middle school was the coolest"
"He kept us kids grooving with P-Funk, soul, and the occasional disco mixtape blasting from his boombox :) Simpler days."
"My dad swears he was the coolest kid"
The smile says he believed it, and honestly, the trumpet backs him up.
"My mom in 1979"
The hair, the stare, the I Love Raleigh shirt — she was not to be messed with.
A young photographer in awe of seeing Kiss Live in 1979
She came to shoot the band and forgot all about the camera.
"My school photo from when I was 15 in 1979"
"Brace finally off, but still had my retainer. Puka shell necklace, check. Box chain necklace, check. Beaded earrings, check. Cool glasses, check."
"My late friend Billy's first mugshot"
Billy was smiling, which tells you something about Billy.
"Cousins and I chilling on my old stoop in NYC in 1979"
The dog wanted in on the photo, one kid wanted no part of it, and the stoop held everyone together anyway.
"My dad and uncle in 1979 before Grad Night"
Two mustaches, two boutonnieres, and a combined level of confidence that could flatten a small building.
Anniversary dinner for two in Oklahoma, 1979
He wore plaid pants to the candlelit lobster dinner, and she let it happen, which is its own kind of love.
Woman on roller skates in midtown Manhattan, 1979
Midtown in July, everyone melting into their suits, and she rolled in like the summer had a spokesperson.
A 7-Eleven in East Brunswick, New Jersey in 1979
Bologna for $1.09, cooked ham for 99 cents, and one pay phone holding the whole night together.
Salesman wait for customers at a dealer in Van Nuys, California.
Four guys in cowboy hats sitting on the bumpers of cars, waiting on a customer who hasn't decided to show up yet, in a parking lot that goes on forever.
"It's good to know I inherited my organizational skills from my father."
I bet if you asked him, though, he'd tell you exactly where everything is.
Bingo player at Saint Casimer's Church Hall in Baltimore, 1979
A whole stack of cards, a look that says she has been one number away from winning for thirty years, and absolutely no intention of leaving until that changes.
Girls sitting in a cafeteria fixing each others hair in 1979
There's a lot to love about this photo, but I can't take my eyes off that vintage Pepsi vending machine.
"It was my job to load our home's residential coal furnace"
Before the school bus, before breakfast, somebody had to keep the house from freezing. This was that somebody.
"My high school media club in 1979"
Four kids who treated the AV room like a kingdom, and were absolutely right to.
Cowboys at the Paradise Valley Bar in Paradise Valley, Nevada in 1979
End of a long day, cold can in hand, somebody saying something that might be true and might not be, and nobody in any particular hurry to find out which.
