"He had a strong urge to throw a nice, hard, water-soaked snowball past her erect, gray head."  From Lighted Pathway, 1951.  Speaking of which, what exactly are a snowball's chances in hell?  See A Snowball's Chance in Hell.

From Golden Rod, 1938.

From our review* of the Handbook of Unusual Natural Phenomena by William R. Corliss (1977).

*In the tradition of the great Charles Fort (even to coverage of frogs raining from the sky), the Handbook of Unusual Natural Phenomena by William R. Corliss (1977) collects eye-witness accounts of highly unusual natural phenomena beyond the reach of scientific explanation.  Square lunar haloes, multiple moons, kaleidoscopic suns, tornadoes with luminous clouds within their funnels, rocket lightning, massive pillars of light on the horizon, auroral "meteors," clouds radiating streams of lights like fireworks, mountain peaks that emit lightning and toss electric globes to one another, space fireflies, will-o'-the-wisps and ghost lights, phosphorescent wheels at sea, six rainbows at once, visible sound waves, sideways mirages, ghost echoes on the earth-moon path, conical snowflakes, slow-falling hail, black snow, fatal fogs, cloud arches, forked waterspouts and clouds connected by horizontal waterspouts, steam devils, "fog guns" or mistpouffers, musical thunder and musical snowflakes, non-lunar tides, rains of sand eels and turtles and toads and spider webs, and manna and brimstone from heaven.  The lavishly illustrated handbook illuminates a world so vastly bizarre that one could easily be convinced it addressed a distant planet and not our own.

From Chatterbox, 1884.

From MacMurray College's 1968 yearbook.

From Franke Reade Weekly Magazine, 1894.

Prospecting in the snow.  From Pennsylvania College for Women's 1949 yearbook.

From Anderson College's 1982 yearbook.

From The King of the Mamozekel by Charles G. D. Roberts and illustrated by Charles Livingston Bull, 1905.

Today's gnome centaur is from Dartmouth College's 1953 yearbook.

From Earlham College's 1970 yearbook.

From Snowflakes by Israel Perkins Warren, 1863.

"Off the trail."  From Lighted Pathway, 1957.

From Artful Anticks by Oliver Herford (1894).

Confirmed: snowballs are snowman droppings.  From Wake Forest College's 1949 yearbook.

"The mail-cart."  From Chatterbox, 1888.

From Tuft University's 1940 yearbook.

Folks so rarely dress up for snowman photos anymore.  From Henderson State's 1984 yearbook.

From the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville's 1977 yearbook.

From Artful Anticks by Oliver Herford (1894).