20 photos that show how summer vacation in the US has changed over the last 100 years

playground metal slides — Metal slides at the playground are a rare sight these days.
Popperfoto/Getty Images

Summer has officially begun.
Summer vacation these days looks quite different from how it did in the 1920s.
Kids used to play sports in the streets, explore on bikes, or play on “dangerous” playgrounds.

Summer vacation used to mean two months of freedom: pools, playgrounds, and hours spent hanging out with your friends.

But for Gen Alpha and the youngest members of Gen Z, summer is starting to look a little different.

Changing technology, safety standards, more cautious parents, and social media have all changed how summer looks. Imagine explaining a unicorn pool float to a Victorian child — it’d send them into a tailspin.

These photos show how summer vacation has changed over the last century.

In the early 1900s, school used to be centered on crops, and summer wasn’t a vacation — it was a time for hard work.

Before child labor laws were adopted in the first half of the 20th century, a 1890 United States Census report showed that 20% of kids ages 10 to 15 were workers — that was over 1.5 million children. A decade later, that went up to 1.75 million gainfully employed kids, according to The Social Welfare History Project.

Bathing suits used to be a little more elaborate.

Young Bathers — Young bathers paddled in the ocean in 1909.
Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Bathing suits have come a long way over the past century.

Kids didn’t need any fancy technology; a stick and a hoop used to be more than enough to keep everyone entertained.

girl playing with hoop — In the 1930s, a hula hoop was the only thing you needed.
H. Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStock/Getty Images

Officially, this was called hoop rolling or hoop trundling. It’s been around since the 1600s and lives on today in a different fashion: the hula hoop.

Stickball was the sport of choice, especially when there was no grass to be found.

stickball 1930s — A group of boys played stickball on the street in the 1930s.
Cincinnati Museum Center/Getty Images

Stickball has been around since the 1800s and is still played now, but many parents are wary of the potential dangers of playing a sport in the middle of the street.

Who doesn’t remember sliding down a burning hot metal slide in the dog days of summer?

Playgrounds used to play fast and loose with kids’ safety (think those metal slides), which was sort of half the fun anyway. All your best stories came from scars earned during your playground days.

Over time, metal was replaced by wood and wood chips, which still wasn’t great. Remember all the splinters?

wooden playground 2000s — A wooden playground in 2002.
William Thomas Cain/Getty Images

That’s pretty much the only downside of them, though.

Kids used to have to meet up with each other just by biking around the neighborhood and seeing who was available.

1970s kids biking summer — A group of kids in the ’60s riding around their neighborhood.
H. Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStock/Getty Images

It’s rare now to see a pack of young kids biking around without a chaperone.

Pool floats were a lot simpler.

small pool float 80s — A family at the pool in the ’80s.
D. Corson/ClassicStock/Getty Images

In general, most things were simpler. There were no Instagram or TikTok followers to show off for.

Arcades eventually became the entertainment of choice, with games like “Pac-Man” and “Asteroids” taking over.

arcade summer — A young girl is photographed in June 1982 playing Pac-Man at a video arcade.
Yvonne Hemsey/Getty Images

Arcades are something of a dying institution in 2025 — you can play all your favorite video games in the comfort of your own home. The only arcades left are the big chains like Dave and Buster’s, or bars like Barcade that are for adults, not kids.

But before ’80s kids even had video games, they had comic strips and crosswords.

summer vacation in the 50s — Do kids even read comic strips anymore?
Hulton Archive/Getty Images

One of the first things many people do in the morning is turn on their phone and fill out the daily mobile crossword of their choosing — maybe you’re partial to The New York Times, perhaps USA Today.

But back in the day, kids and adults would crack open the daily newspaper and play the games, whether it was a crossword or a word scramble or a word search.

And, of course, you can’t forget about the comics section — Charlie Brown was just as famous as Bluey or the pups of Paw Patrol.

Sometimes, all you needed for a fun time was a tarp, soap, and a hose — voila! A makeshift slip-and-slide.

Never mind that sticks, rocks, and anything else on the ground could rip the tarp and cut up your arms and legs. That was part of the fun.

And it didn’t matter if there was nothing to stop your momentum — sliding into your friends and knocking them over was the whole point.

Ideal summer jobs were lifeguarding or being a camp counselor.

lifeguards teens — Swimmers cheered for each other during a race.
Kathryn Osler/The Denver Post via Getty Images

Even though working teenagers are in high demand and could be making good money, the labor force participation of teens is much lower than it used to be.

In 2024, 5.7 million 16-to-19-year-olds worked over the summer, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s a five-year high, but nothing compared to the 8.3 million teens who worked during the summer of 1978.

Now, bathing suits look a little different.

2018 bathing suits — A beach in 2018.
Sergei MalgavkoTASS via Getty Images

Vintage-style bathing suits are coming back, though, like the ’80s-era high-cut one-pieces or belted bathing suits of the ’70s.

Virtual-reality games mean kids don’t even have to go outside to get the summer experience.

kid playing virtual reality video games — A kid who played VR in 2017.
Thierry Le Fouille/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Per a Florida Atlantic University study in 2024, one in three kids has access to a VR headset. But even if a kid doesn’t have access to an Oculus or an Apple Vision Pro, they might have a tablet or some type of video game system.

“In our research, we found that kids were spending a lot less time outside,” Ruslan Slutsky, an education professor at the University of Toledo, told Vox. “They were spending a lot less time in traditional forms of play because they were playing with devices.”

But, if “Black Mirror” is to be believed, we all might do with taking a breather from virtual reality and actually concentrating on real life and real relationships.

Playgrounds are so safe they’ve become kind of boring, and some kids have forsaken them altogether.

playground 2010 — Children on the playground in 2010.
Carol M. Highsmith/Buyenlarge/Getty Images

A study conducted in 2012 published by Pediatrics Digest found that kids aren’t using playgrounds anymore because they’re not stimulated enough.

The Atlantic reported that lead researcher Kristen Copeland found that “some participants said that overly strict safety standards made much of the climbing equipment uninteresting, thus reducing children’s physical activity.”

Per a 2024 report by the World Playground Research Institute, not much has changed in the intervening 12 years. In the UK, 27% of kids reported playing outside regularly.

Teens and tweens make plans via text, and even when they’re together, they barely speak.

kids using iphones — This is the most common thing to see a group of teens doing.
Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

It’s not the same making plans in a group chat. It takes all the fun out of being surprised by your friends biking up unannounced to your house.

Now, having a pool without a gigantic float is frowned upon.

Though we can’t hate on the unicorn float, especially in recent heat waves.
Robert F. Bukaty/AP Images

There’s an overwhelming amount of pool floats to pick from in 2025.

Sports are well-organized these days, and significantly less dangerous.

kids playing sports — Kids playing cricket in 2018.
Scott Barbour – CA/Cricket Australia/Getty Images

Though it’s probably a good thing that kids aren’t allowed to roam the streets without being able to call home, or play sports in the street, or play on potentially dangerous playgrounds — it’s just not the same.

Finally, even slip-and-slides have been commodified into giant events.

slide in the city — A Slide the City event in Colorado.
Cliff Grassmick/Digital First Media/Boulder Daily Camera via Getty Images

Slide the City was a cool event while it lasted — a giant slip-and-slide took over a few blocks of your city — but it was not the same as getting covered in dish soap with your friends.

In 2020 and 2021, masked kids were a normal sight because of the pandemic.