Portraits of Romanian peasants- how they looked like 100 years ago

If you are interested in knowing how Romanian peasants looked like at the beginning of the 20th century, this is the perfect event. The Ethnographic Museum of Transylvania from Cluj-Napoca is celebrating the Grand Union Centennial and they are hosting an event called ” 100 portraits of Transylvanian peasants”.

The portraits are part of an immense collection of 50,000 photos. The images were created on glass plates during 1910-1939 by Romulus Vuia, Luiza Netoliczka, Teodor Onisor and Denis Galloway.

The photos were taken as part of a research, the photographers were interested mainly in the women’s traditional wear and the way they arranged their hair. According to the researchers, the way women arranged their hair showed their age, their social status, if they were married and where they lived. The collection presents portraits were taken during the Grand Union.