16 Retro Snapshots of Summers at the Beach

In 1945, this young woman was photographed on the back of Ferdinand the ox while visiting a Florida beach. Instead of beach floats and coolers, she packed twin toy pistols for the staged shot.

Uniform rows of colorful beach umbrellas await beachgoers in Nantucket in 1957.

Students from the Hensche Art School paint iterations of the same model at a Provincetown beach in 1947.

A couple dozes off on a wrought iron park bench in the United Kingdom in August 1955, while a busy beach scene continues in the backdrop.

Copacabana and Ipanema aren’t the only beaches worth visiting in Rio de Janeiro. In 1957, Dmitri Kessel captured this stunning shot of Leblon Beach.

Off Manly Beach, near Sydney, Australia, a row of surfers ride a low wave back to shore.

In the heat of the sun, one young American couple dozed off on their oversized beach blanket.

Young children—and one skeptical dog—play in the receding surf on Cannon Beach in Oregon in 1960.

On a beach in California, in 1970, one unsuspecting sunbather was captured snacking on a Butterfinger candy bar.

Even on the New England coast, it’s possible to find powdery white sand. The only thing missing from this 1967 tableau is a perfect regional lobster roll.

Nothing sets the scene quite like the camel, which relaxes by the waters while a woman bronzes under the Egyptian sun.

In 1968, Julian Wasser photographed these teenagers tackling the waves at Malibu Beach.

Dusk washes this quiet Floridian beach with dramatic shades of purple in the 70s.

To this day, Ipanema Beach (shot here in the late 1980s) remains a popular destination for sunbathers and people-watchers.

An electric orange beach umbrella on this crowded crescent of sand says it all: summers are synonymous with long afternoons by the water.

Foamy waves lap at the sand on this morning in 1982. Photographer Jerry Cooke captured the serene moment before beachgoers flooded the scene.