Our daily lives are peppered with concepts we now take for granted, yet each of these ten staples once sparked fierce opposition. This top 10 everyday roundup explores how ideas like passport photos, guide dogs, and even comic books were once despised, and why they eventually won over the skeptics.
10 Passport Photos
At first glance, a passport photograph seems like the most straightforward solution for identity verification—nothing more obvious than attaching a portrait and a brief physical description to a travel document.
Back in 1835, the British Foreign Office actually preferred the opposite: no photograph at all. The foreign secretary deemed the notion of cataloguing citizens’ faces and measurements as both demeaning and offensive, fearing that travelers would be “scrutinised by foreigners.”
Consequently, British passports sailed through the early 19th century without any visual representation until the First World War forced a change. The conflict exposed the ease with which enemy agents could slip across borders, prompting officials to finally mandate both a photo and a written description.
The new requirement sparked its own controversy. Explorer and natural historian Bassett Digby railed against what he called the office’s “high‑handed” approach, complaining that his own visage was reduced to the bland label “oval” instead of the “intelligent” face he believed it to be.
9 Guide Dogs
In the aftermath of the First World War, Europe faced a surplus of blinded veterans, prompting the creation of guide‑dog training schools across the continent. German institutions led the way and initially enjoyed a warm public reception.
Nonetheless, animal‑rights groups raised concerns about under‑trained canines being misused by beggars or impostors claiming veteran status, casting a shadow over the practice in certain circles.
In Britain, the response grew more hostile. Critics decried the perceived “torturous” workload placed on the dogs and the physical strain on their handlers, even witnessing members of the public attempting to sabotage trainers. The tide turned once the mutual benefits of the partnership became undeniable.
8 Cars
The automobile, arguably the engine of modern civilization, now underpins the logistics of every metropolis, yet a century ago many citizens openly loathed these motorized contraptions.
Part of the animosity stemmed from the fact that a car depended entirely on a single driver. In 1896, Alfred Sennett of the British Association for the Advancement of Science warned that a “horseless carriage” lacked the instinctual intelligence of a horse, which could instinctively halt or dodge obstacles.
In Pennsylvania, the Farmers’ Anti‑Automobile Society proposed outrageous safeguards: nightly flare‑launches every mile, relentless horn‑blaring, and, if a horse refused to yield, the driver was instructed to dismantle the vehicle and hide its parts among the foliage.
Britain’s 1865 Locomotives Act even required a pedestrian to walk 55 metres ahead of any moving engine, waving a red flag as a warning. The law was relaxed in 1896, allowing automobiles to reach speeds of 19 km/h (12 mph).
To grasp the dread, imagine city streets of the 1890s dominated by pedestrians, with children darting across intersections. The sudden arrival of fast, driver‑controlled machines shattered that familiar rhythm.
By 1925, automobile accidents accounted for 67 % of urban fatalities in the United States, prompting newspapers such as The New York Times to denounce the “homicidal orgy of the motor car,” and sparking massive street protests.
The automobile’s reputation was salvaged by lobbyists who coined the term “jaywalker,” shifting blame onto pedestrians and painting the drivers as victims of reckless foot traffic.
7 Nostalgia
Nostalgia, the sentimental yearning for bygone days, enjoys a trendy resurgence today through shows like Stranger Things and political slogans, yet in earlier centuries reminiscing could be a punishable offense.
During the Thirty Years’ War, six Spanish soldiers were discharged with a condition dubbed “el mal de corazón,” later known as “Swiss illness” after Swiss troops were executed for singing a nostalgic ballad.
In 1733, a Russian general ordered that the first soldier afflicted with this “Swiss illness” be buried alive, arguing that soldiers should focus solely on the battlefield and not dwell on home.
The 19th and 20th centuries saw nostalgia labelled as an “immigrant psychosis” and a “mentally repressive compulsive disorder,” reflecting the era’s clinical disdain for sentimental reflection.
Treatments varied wildly: French physician Jourdan Le Cointe advocated “pain and terror,” while an American doctor, Theodore Calhoun, preferred public humiliation, subjecting sufferers to ridicule. Modern mental health care has thankfully moved beyond such draconian methods.
6 Potatoes
The humble potato, now a staple in cuisines worldwide, was once met with suspicion when it first arrived from the Americas, prompting widespread distrust among European populations.
In 1744, King Frederick the Great resorted to ordering his starving subjects to consume tubers during a famine, while English farmers linked the vegetable to Catholic excess, coining the 1765 slogan “No Potatoes, No Popery!” French citizens in the late 1500s dismissed the crop as fit only for livestock, even fearing it could cause leprosy.
The turnaround came courtesy of French agronomist Antoine‑Augustin Parmentier, who staged flamboyant publicity stunts, inviting dignitaries and even Thomas Jefferson to sample his prepared potatoes, thereby elevating the tuber’s status.
Parmentier’s tactics included having Parisian aristocrats wear potato blossoms as fashionable accessories and planting guarded rows of tubers on the city’s outskirts. He later withdrew the guards at night, allowing desperate Parisians to pilfer the crops, which sparked a popular appetite for the once‑scorned vegetable.
5 Movies With Sound
Audio now defines cinema—think of the iconic scores of Star Wars or the rapid‑fire banter of Marvel—but when sound first entered the picture house, many industry leaders scoffed at the idea.
In the 1920s, Warner Bros. founder Harry Warner watched a demonstration of the Vitaphone system and praised its ability to replace live orchestras in theaters, yet remained skeptical about the value of audible dialogue.
When told the system also enabled actors to speak on screen, Warner quipped, “Who the hell wants to hear actors talk? The music—that’s the big plus about this.” Executive Joseph Schenck echoed the sentiment, insisting that “talking doesn’t belong in pictures.”
Silent‑film icons were equally resistant. 1920s star Clara Bow declared, “I hate talkies. They’re stiff and limiting,” lamenting the cumbersome microphones that restricted movement and the shift away from exaggerated facial expressions.
Even Charlie Chaplin, the king of silent comedy, initially resisted, writing in 1931 that the “silent picture… is a universal means of expression” and that talking pictures necessarily narrowed artistic scope.
Despite the pushback, sound eventually prevailed, reshaping the cinematic landscape and rendering silent films a relic of a bygone era.
4 Library Books
Public libraries represent a modern miracle, offering free access to books and the ability to borrow them for home reading—an idea that would raise eyebrows if introduced today.
In the late 19th century, however, a wave of anxiety dubbed the “great book scare” swept the United States and Britain, with fears that shared books could transmit contagious diseases like tuberculosis and scarlet fever.
Governments responded with legislation intended to bar ill individuals from borrowing, and libraries were urged to disinfect every volume. In 1900, Scranton, Pennsylvania, even ordered its libraries to cease all book circulation.
By the 1910s, the panic subsided as data showed librarians did not suffer higher infection rates, and the public gradually regained confidence in the safety of shared reading material.
Modern research now confirms that library books do not serve as vectors for bacterial transmission, cementing their role as safe, communal knowledge hubs.
3 Shopping Carts
At first sight, the shopping cart appears mundane—a wheeled basket for groceries—yet its introduction sparked a cultural clash in retail stores.
Before the 1920s, most shops prohibited customers from selecting items themselves; clerks retrieved merchandise behind counters, limiting shopper autonomy.
Enter Sylvan Goldman, the visionary behind the self‑service model, who recognized that customers needed a portable means to carry multiple goods, leading to the birth of the modern shopping trolley.
Goldman rolled out carts across his chain, hiring actors to demonstrate their convenience, positioning an attractive woman at store entrances, and staging performances to showcase the new tool.
Despite the promotional push, adoption lagged. In a 1977 interview, Goldman claimed women rejected carts because they were already exhausted from pushing baby carriages, while men felt insulted by the implication they couldn’t lift their purchases unaided.
2 Coffee
Coffee’s journey has been riddled with controversy, as religious authorities across Mecca, Cairo, and Istanbul repeatedly attempted bans, likening its stimulating effects to those of alcohol, which Islam forbids.
Beyond the beverage itself, coffeehouses emerged as hubs for political and religious discourse, alarming rulers who feared the free exchange of subversive ideas.
In 1674 England, a satirical pamphlet titled “The Women’s Petition Against Coffee” claimed the drink made husbands overly chatty, describing them as “sup muddy water, and murmur insignificant notes” that out‑talked their wives.
The pamphlet also alleged that coffee dulled male libido, stating that a husband would approach the marital bed expecting vigor yet meet “a bedful of bones.”
Scholars now suspect the petition was a government‑sponsored ruse, part of King Charles II’s campaign to curb coffeehouses, reflecting his paranoia after his father’s execution by rebellious subjects.
1 Comic Books
Superheroes dominate today’s pop culture, but in the post‑World War II era, comic books faced genuine moral panic, despite selling up to 60 million copies per month in the United States.
The surge in popularity invited scrutiny; the wartime climate normalized graphic violence, and even comics authored by women and people of color drew heightened criticism.
Psychiatrist Fredric Wertham spearheaded a crusade, claiming comics incited sexual aggression and asserting, among other unfounded claims, that Batman and Robin represented a “wish dream of two homosexuals living together.”
His accusations reached a Senate subcommittee, where Wertham warned, “I think Hitler was a beginner compared to the comic book industry.” In response, publishers created the Comics Code Authority, imposing strict bans on violence, profanity, and controversial themes.
Nevertheless, public outcry persisted, with comic‑book burnings across America during the 1940s and 1950s, as tens of thousands of issues were destroyed in moralistic fervor.