This Bad Boy Is Zach T. Wilcox, Owner of the World's Longest Beard, in 1922

Captured here: this bad boy is Zach T. Wilcox, owner of the world's longest beard, in 1922. It was taken in 1922, and like the best archival images it needs almost no explanation — the frame tells its own story.

The 1920s roared with new money and new habits. Radio broadcasting began, cars became affordable for working families, jazz filled dance halls, and hemlines and haircuts shortened in ways that scandalized the older generation. News photography boomed alongside the tabloid press.

Pictures of ordinary life are some of the most valuable historical documents we have. Grand events were always going to be recorded, but a normal day — how people worked, dressed, shopped, and passed the time — survives only when someone happened to point a camera at it.