Rare color photos of the early 1900s that show how much life has changed

People go about their day in 1912.SSPL/Getty Images

• The Lumiere brothers patented Autochrome Lumiere photography in 1903 and held their first demonstration in 1907.
• The process involves light passing through glass plates covered in tiny grains of colored potato starch.
• It was the most popular way to take color photos in the early 1900s.

Auguste and Louis Lumiere patented a color photography process called Autochrome Lumiere in 1903 (they also invented the cinématographe in 1895). The process involves light passing through glass plates covered in tiny grains of colored potato starch, according to the National Science and Media Museum in the UK.

The Lumiere brothers held the first public demonstration of their invention in 1907 and began selling autochrome plates shortly thereafter, making color photography more widely available than it had ever been before.

Here are 15 autochrome photos that show life in the early 1900s in color.