Cats and Dogs Dressed as People, 100 Years Ago

I never thought I'd publish a photo essay of cute kittens and puppies ... but here it is. I mean, look at them—these amazingly sharp photographs of kittens and pups are a century old, but their humor and appeal is timeless, as the Internet has proven again and again. Photographer Harry Whittier Frees, born in 1879, began a career in cute-animal photography in 1906, building out a small studio to produce postcards, calendars, and children's books. While I was researching World War I events on the Library of Congress website, I stumbled across a collection of Frees's work from June 1914, and just had to share. The LOLcat is not a new phenomenon.

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