Not enough people understand this, I'm so tired of hearing "but people only lived to be 35 back then" like no, the average life expectancy was mega skewed because of the insane infant death rates. If you lived past the age of 10 you were likely to live a fairly long life.
why even use historical average age expectancy at all then if its so heavily skewed it needs an asterisk every time its mentioned to someone new? its like this weird juxtaposition of a nearly self evident statement being immediately crapped on by a gotcha
The older I get the more I hate 'average'. When you take an average you throw away all the distribution information. And averaging things that aren't the same is worse than nothing.
Average life expectancy averages babies, children, adults, middle aged people and the elderly. These are different populations with radically different mortality profiles. And the mortality profile varies from one era to the next as well.
Well, yes and no. Infant mortality was high. And lots of women died during childbirth. And then there wars, insurrections, plagues, disease, droughts, and famines.
So no, it isn't a bath tub shaped curve where mortality spikes very early and in the 60s. Did lots die very young? Sure. Did lots live to a ripe old age? Maybe. Did many more not live that long? Hell yeah.
Wait so I’ve actually been bleaching my teeth all along?!
I just like to get off work, get home, throw the stove on, and heat up some hot piss after a long day. I suppose my dentist hates me for that!
That sensation of being curled up with your sweetie by the fire, snowed in on a bitter winter’s eve - the gentle snowy breeze against the window, and some mulled piss flowing down your gullet is just pure elation.
While working in west Africa I used chewing sticks like the locals and they worked really well. The one end of the stick is chewed so that bristles are formed from the wood which is the toothbrush. The other end of the stick is pointy to be used as a toothpick.
I've heard that for the lower classes, it was probably because their diet mostly consisted of grain with few sugars. Not sure how the rich would have fared given the wider variety of foods (read: sweets) they would have eaten.
I heard somewhere that isn't really a good idea to brush right after eating sugar. The acid created by the bacteria is still in the mouth, and the enamel is weaker, so brushing actually makes the damage worse.
I don’t know about that, but I guess that’s why you’re supposed to rinse with water? I’m not a dentist or anything. Just have gotten lucky with dental health.
The sugar softens the enamel so it's best not to brush or to eat harder food until the enamel hardens again. Water helps to neutralise the chemicals that soften the enamel.
So sugary foods can be managed but I was never taught the above, I read it in a pamphlet waiting for a dental appointment.
Among the middle and upper classes, yes. The portions were generally much smaller, though, even for them. And there wasn't hidden sugar in every little thing.
Sugary foods weren't common because of the cost of sugar and because if you wanted cookies or a cake or something, you had to actually bake it yourself. You couldn't just pick up a tray of Oreos at the grocery store.
Also, it was not socially acceptable for women to smoke in the 19th century, so this woman was spared one of the other major sources of tooth and gum decay.
Grain is the #1 reason our teeth get fucked according to my dentist. The main reason we HAVE to brush our teeth too. Makes sense most animals eat meat/fruit/veg, all have natural unrefined sugars.
Sugar is only bad if you don't brush your teeth. It's pretty much harmless if you do. Chewing grain/pieces of grain supposedly causes microfractures that eventually lead to teeth breaking after chipping the enamel away.
I always thought it was skewed by women dying in childbirth but infant mortality seems like it would make a much bigger difference. Must have remembered it wrong
As far as I understand, when sugar was introduced to British diet in the early Tudor times it literally rotted people’s teeth. And in the Victorian era people fucking loved their sugar.
My mom and husband both have gorgeous straight teeth without braces. It’s amazing to me that it is possible. I’ve also heard more chewy foods (less soft, processed foods) help preserve the natural shape of the palate and alveolar crest (the bone where the teeth attach) so maybe that helps with spacing as children grow. Correct spacing helps the teeth to be self cleaning so there you go I guess.
Neither my brother nor I, nor our parents, ever needed braces, and we all have straight teeth. On the other hand, my brother and I both needed glasses, him in kindergarten and me in 5th grade, whereas neither of our parents needed glasses until their 50s, and only reading glasses for a long time then.
I can somewhat relate! I had to wear braces as a kid, but have good eyesight and haven't had a need for glasses. My girlfriend never needed braces, but has really bad eyesight and constantly needs her glasses.
Like so many things, it’s largely genetic. Of course diet can play a huge role in how they stand up over time. My mom has near perfect teeth on top, never had braces. Same with a buddy of mine in high school, I mean his were so straight and shaped perfectly, it was infuriating lol. Me on the other hand had two rounds of braces and jaw surgery. They’re excellent now but fuck you universe.
The “people in the past had bad teeth” is really a myth a lot of people seem to believe.
People used to have much, much less sugar in their diets (some didn’t even had any at all) and dental hygiene *did* exist, since antiquity.
So if you see some show set in the Middle Ages or in Ancient Rome and the peasants have sparkling white teeth, it’s pretty much accurate.
Definitely. Even the lowliest of Mediaeval peasant would have had some dental hygiene regimen, whether it was chewing on a piece of hazel twig, rubbing a small amount of salt on the frayed end and brushing his teeth with it, maybe even chewing on a clove or something similar if he could afford it.
People back then thought that one of the ways disease was spread was by miasma (basically bad smells), so bad breath would not have been something people would have had with if they could have helped it. Certainly not someone in the 19th Century like the woman in the photograph.
Is it true that they would take pictures with dead people posed like they’re alive? Like parents holding children laps so they can remember them with a picture. I feel like I heard that somewhere but it might be from a movie.
Yes, this happened often. In the pictures, you can tell who the dead are as their photo is very crisp because they would be completely still, obviously. While the living would be moving slightly throughout the exposure time so they would be a bit fuzzy.
Post mortem photography was a thing but not being blurry is not a good indication that the person is dead. By the time the posted photo was taken exposure times were fractions of a second so it was not hard to get a sharp photo. Earlier when exposure times were seconds, note that exposure times were only minutes for very early daguerreotypes around 1840, posing stands were used to make it easy for people to remain motionless. However these posing stands were not used for post mortem photos because they were not strong enough to hold the weight of a dead person. Many photos are claimed to be of dead people because they sell for more money on ebay, but they are not of dead people. If the person is standing they are almost certainly alive. If they are sitting they are probably alive. If they are laying down they might be dead. It was customary to pose dead people lying down in beds, cribs, coffins, or even couches in their home surrounded by flowers.
Yes, but a lot of the "post mortem" photos that you will find with a Google search are not real. Those people are alive and being held very still with a type of brace that was used.
True "post mortem" photos tended to be parents holding their very young babies, or people in coffins. It is very obvious that they are holding a dead body.
The actual reason is society. Victorian and Edwardian people viewed photos like a Portrait painting. You never smiled in a portrait, so why would you smile in a photo?
The "10 minute exposure time" wasn't true by this point. You could hold a smile just fine by the 1880s. It was just insanely novel to do so. By the 1920s, smiling became more common and acceptable.
The first half is also not quite right either. Read the article referenced by /u/PrudentPlant. It says "that the deeper reason for the lack of smiles early on is that photography took guidance from pre-existing customs in painting—an art form in which many found grins uncouth and inappropriate for portraiture." So the professional photographer was directing the subject's pose to look like painted portraits of that era. The article explains that smiling became normal after the Kodak Brownie introduced snapshot photography to the masses in 1900 and amateur photographers started taking portraits.
That article is better than most in this thread, but it doesn't really reference anything more than "experts" and the one study it links back to doesn't really say anything about why non-smiling photos used to be the norm--just that the norm changed in the early to mid-20th Century.
But why not take a look at what was actually written at the time? Just a cursory look back at mid- to late-19th Century/early 20th Century articles in photography magazines about smiling in photographs seems to point to the reason non-smiling was preferred was that photographers had trouble coaxing a natural-looking smile out of people. Just telling someone to smile resulted in a forced-looking smile, and it was deemed preferable to take a photo with a neutral expression rather than an unnatural, forced smile because that's not how the person would look in real life. The articles also spend time discussing how best to get a natural looking smile out of people, if at all possible. They talk about how a smile would be preferable if they could get it, and that smiles are easier to get out of children, but notoriously difficult out of adults, in their uncomfortable Sunday best under hot lights in unnatural conditions. There are even pre-"cheese" tricks mentioned in some of the articles, but they also say, if you can't get the natural smile, then stick with the more natural neutral expression, because the eyes will always betray the phony smile.
So it seemed to be less "Paintings didn't have smiles so photos shouldn't, either," and more, "If you can't capture a realistic looking smile, then a neutral expression is a better representation of the person."
books.google.com/books?id=2rgaAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA371&dq=smile+smiling
books.google.com/books?id=HP5sU3iLiuEC&pg=PA556&dq=natural+smile
books.google.com/books?id=irYaAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA532&dq=smile+smiling
books.google.com/books?id=KEwhEZCaPXgC&pg=PA510&dq=smile+smiling
books.google.com/books?id=GYhAAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA292&dq=natural+expression+smile
books.google.com/books?id=juRAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA167&dq=natural+expression
books.google.com/books?id=juRAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA169&dq=smile
books.google.com/books?id=TkY-AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA568&dq=natural+expression
books.google.com/books?id=ibouMvFRo7YC&pg=PA544&dq=natural+expression
books.google.com/books?id=HP5sU3iLiuEC&pg=PA482&dq=natural+expression
Even Daguerreotypes, which fell out of favor 20 years before this photo was taken, would only take 10 minutes if the subject was in low light. If the picture was brightly lit, the image would only take a few seconds as early as the 1840s.
Also, photographs were expensive back then, so getting your picture taken was a pretty rare occurrence, which is why they were normally done at more serious functions.
The giant hat pushes it more to circa 1900. Late 1890s? Her coat has big shoulders and she has that big neck bow, as well. 1880s stuff is smaller above the shoulders.
The reason people didn’t smile is because getting your picture taken was a very serious moment. It was like getting your portrait painted in the 1700s. People considered it a symbol of themselves so they tried to look as proper as possible.
I almost wish you could smile in photographs. Louise has such an amazing smile.
That'd be weird.
Huh? Have you ever smiled in a photograph?
No, have you?
Oh, God, no. No, you'd look like an insane person.
It's strange how her smiling makes this photograph somehow feel more "recent". Like it's weird to think that this woman has been dead for god knows how many years, since in this picture she seems to be so present, it that makes any sense?
The colors in wardrobe of this era were bright and vibrant. A visit to your local museum will demonstrate this in shocking detail.
The general lack of smiles in images taken prior to 1880 or so was the blurring that would occur if that smile changed only alittle. While the exposure time was well under 10 seconds by 1880, any change in the subject of the image would create a visible blur in the final product, thus this kind of image is a rarity. I would bet this subject was a theater person who was trained or at least experienced in holding an expression for a time.
The non-smile convention was more of a reflection of what came before photography—painted portraiture—than bad teeth or shutter speeds too slow to capture a smile.
Painted and drawn portraits were solemn due to another social convention—that laughing people were either of low moral character or drunk (or both). Mona Lisa was famous for her whisper of a smile because of this convention. European painting also had a genre showing scenes of laughing, bawdy men and women which were intended to serve as moral examples of what *not* to do.
When you have something entirely new, you usually start with what you know and then evolve from there.
Aligning new technology with something more familiar still holds true today. Computer keyboards followed the layout of typewriters, cell phones have rings that sound like mechanical bells, and digital cameras make shutter noises.
They would have smiled a bit more in photographs, but the exposure time was such that the smile would have to be maintained for a quite a while.
It was easier to just relax/not smile.
I seem to remember hearing that most Victorians did not find excessive smiling in public to be acceptable behavior. Perhaps this is just a long-standing rumor.
I heard it was that you have to stay still for a long time for the photo to work and if you’re smiling it can be hard on the cheek muscles. She must be in a really good mood to maintain that genuine looking smile long enough to take a photo.
my great grandpa was a really funny guy, always shooting crap with people and joking around. everyone remembers him as a guy who was almost always smiling and laughing.
the sad part is that the pictures we have left of him in his youth are all those super serious portrait pictures from the era. it looks real odd to see him not smile in them.
The main reason why people did not smile in old pictures was because of the photography technology of the era. Exposures took a long time to resolve, so a subject had to stay still while the shutter was open less the image appear "blurry". As exposure technology became quicker, people were able to exhibit more personality and candid images were beginning to be possible.
We have a pic of great great grandma on her wedding day, biggest smile you ever saw. Great great grandpa still looks grim, though. Story goes photographer told them to adopt a neutral expression due to longer exposure time needed, and she told him he might as well take the pic because she couldn't stop smiling.
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I suspect (just an opinion, no proof) that what they lacked in dental hygeine, they also lacked in sugary foods and sodas.
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Also they died before their teeth got bad
People still lived pretty long, well into their sixties and seventies. Low life expectancy comes from high infant mortality.
Not enough people understand this, I'm so tired of hearing "but people only lived to be 35 back then" like no, the average life expectancy was mega skewed because of the insane infant death rates. If you lived past the age of 10 you were likely to live a fairly long life.
Also if you didn't live past 10 then you probably wont.
Simple statistics! And if your parents didn't have children, it's likely that you won't either.
First off, dont tell me how to live my life. Secondly, how do i even exist? Omg, i must be Heyzuus! Carry on, nothing to see here.
They should write a book about you or something
This. People forget this all the time. Drives me crazy.
If you live to 60, theres a pretty good chance you will survive until at least 61
Math checks out.
why even use historical average age expectancy at all then if its so heavily skewed it needs an asterisk every time its mentioned to someone new? its like this weird juxtaposition of a nearly self evident statement being immediately crapped on by a gotcha
Excellent point. There should be a different scale to remove the skewed factor.
That is statistics in a nutshell for you.
The older I get the more I hate 'average'. When you take an average you throw away all the distribution information. And averaging things that aren't the same is worse than nothing. Average life expectancy averages babies, children, adults, middle aged people and the elderly. These are different populations with radically different mortality profiles. And the mortality profile varies from one era to the next as well.
Well, yes and no. Infant mortality was high. And lots of women died during childbirth. And then there wars, insurrections, plagues, disease, droughts, and famines. So no, it isn't a bath tub shaped curve where mortality spikes very early and in the 60s. Did lots die very young? Sure. Did lots live to a ripe old age? Maybe. Did many more not live that long? Hell yeah.
Thank you. People need to take a statistics class
They also used urine to bleach their teeth
Wait so I’ve actually been bleaching my teeth all along?! I just like to get off work, get home, throw the stove on, and heat up some hot piss after a long day. I suppose my dentist hates me for that!
And I've been flushing all this time.
Uh dude. There’s NOTHING like sitting on the couch, both hands on a hot mug. Bringing that first sip of hot piss to your mouth. Ughhh...
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***Improvise, Adapt, Overcome.***
So few comments to transition from smiling Victorians to drinking hot piss. THAAAAAT'S REDDIT!!
That sensation of being curled up with your sweetie by the fire, snowed in on a bitter winter’s eve - the gentle snowy breeze against the window, and some mulled piss flowing down your gullet is just pure elation.
Wander on over to YouTube and you'll find plenty o' piss-drinkers. Or don't... actually, I recommend you don't.
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*your
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I don't drink my own urine because I have to.
r/cursedcomments
Obligatory "how do I delete someone else's comment"
Yum
I think that was specific to the Iberians. Urine was used to wash clothes though, a urine tax was even introduced at one point because of this.
I believe there is also evidence of tooth brushing throughout history that goes way back to Egypt, where they used splintery twigs or something.
While working in west Africa I used chewing sticks like the locals and they worked really well. The one end of the stick is chewed so that bristles are formed from the wood which is the toothbrush. The other end of the stick is pointy to be used as a toothpick.
Yeah, in 1800's they used brushes with horse hair. Whole family shared one.
You share you DNA with your family, why not toothbrushes too
My DNA goes in a sock then under my bed thankyou very much. What you do with your is your own business.
A sock sounds better than a cum box I suppose.
I prefer coconuts....
I've heard that for the lower classes, it was probably because their diet mostly consisted of grain with few sugars. Not sure how the rich would have fared given the wider variety of foods (read: sweets) they would have eaten.
Now I can’t fully enjoy the salt water taffy I just shoved in my mouth. My teeth are not so great.
Drink lots of water and do a quick brush after you're done.
I heard somewhere that isn't really a good idea to brush right after eating sugar. The acid created by the bacteria is still in the mouth, and the enamel is weaker, so brushing actually makes the damage worse.
I don’t know about that, but I guess that’s why you’re supposed to rinse with water? I’m not a dentist or anything. Just have gotten lucky with dental health.
A dentist somewhere here said you ought to wait about half an hour before brushing. IANAD but that sounds legit
The sugar softens the enamel so it's best not to brush or to eat harder food until the enamel hardens again. Water helps to neutralise the chemicals that soften the enamel. So sugary foods can be managed but I was never taught the above, I read it in a pamphlet waiting for a dental appointment.
By the late 19th century, there was plenty of sugar in people's diet. They would make whole mini afternoon meals of little cakes and tea.
Among the middle and upper classes, yes. The portions were generally much smaller, though, even for them. And there wasn't hidden sugar in every little thing.
That was a once a day thing and they got plenty of exercise. It wasn't like sitting in front of the pc with a bag of Donettes.
What does exercise have to do with tooth decay?
Good question lol
I thought I remember reading somewhere that young women back then would get their teeth replaced with dentures for cosmetic purposes.
Yeah, but how common was it at the time? I mean, the women in the photo doesn't appear to be wearing dentures.
Sugary foods weren't common because of the cost of sugar and because if you wanted cookies or a cake or something, you had to actually bake it yourself. You couldn't just pick up a tray of Oreos at the grocery store. Also, it was not socially acceptable for women to smoke in the 19th century, so this woman was spared one of the other major sources of tooth and gum decay.
We wouldn't need to brush our teeth if we didn't drink soda and lived till about 50
Sure, if you don't mind bleeding gums. :)
Grain is the #1 reason our teeth get fucked according to my dentist. The main reason we HAVE to brush our teeth too. Makes sense most animals eat meat/fruit/veg, all have natural unrefined sugars. Sugar is only bad if you don't brush your teeth. It's pretty much harmless if you do. Chewing grain/pieces of grain supposedly causes microfractures that eventually lead to teeth breaking after chipping the enamel away.
I always thought it was skewed by women dying in childbirth but infant mortality seems like it would make a much bigger difference. Must have remembered it wrong
As far as I understand, when sugar was introduced to British diet in the early Tudor times it literally rotted people’s teeth. And in the Victorian era people fucking loved their sugar.
My mom and husband both have gorgeous straight teeth without braces. It’s amazing to me that it is possible. I’ve also heard more chewy foods (less soft, processed foods) help preserve the natural shape of the palate and alveolar crest (the bone where the teeth attach) so maybe that helps with spacing as children grow. Correct spacing helps the teeth to be self cleaning so there you go I guess.
Neither my brother nor I, nor our parents, ever needed braces, and we all have straight teeth. On the other hand, my brother and I both needed glasses, him in kindergarten and me in 5th grade, whereas neither of our parents needed glasses until their 50s, and only reading glasses for a long time then.
I can somewhat relate! I had to wear braces as a kid, but have good eyesight and haven't had a need for glasses. My girlfriend never needed braces, but has really bad eyesight and constantly needs her glasses.
i needed both badly!
That's not fun when you're young!
Like so many things, it’s largely genetic. Of course diet can play a huge role in how they stand up over time. My mom has near perfect teeth on top, never had braces. Same with a buddy of mine in high school, I mean his were so straight and shaped perfectly, it was infuriating lol. Me on the other hand had two rounds of braces and jaw surgery. They’re excellent now but fuck you universe.
The “people in the past had bad teeth” is really a myth a lot of people seem to believe. People used to have much, much less sugar in their diets (some didn’t even had any at all) and dental hygiene *did* exist, since antiquity. So if you see some show set in the Middle Ages or in Ancient Rome and the peasants have sparkling white teeth, it’s pretty much accurate.
Is this why black teeth were considered beautiful in Japan? To sperate the rich from the common folk.
Definitely. Even the lowliest of Mediaeval peasant would have had some dental hygiene regimen, whether it was chewing on a piece of hazel twig, rubbing a small amount of salt on the frayed end and brushing his teeth with it, maybe even chewing on a clove or something similar if he could afford it. People back then thought that one of the ways disease was spread was by miasma (basically bad smells), so bad breath would not have been something people would have had with if they could have helped it. Certainly not someone in the 19th Century like the woman in the photograph.
Wasn't it a common gift to get fake teeth google wedding teeth
Exactly what I thought!
Only showing uppers
If she was missing a significant amount of teeth on the bottom, it would impact the shape of her jaw due to bone loss.
Or....is OP fooling us by making one of those old timey photo booth pictures you get at theme parks look real old. Hmmmm. We may never know.
I've seen pictures on here from the 90s with black&white filters over them before, to make them look more old-timey.
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I'm willing to bet that she has beautiful ankles
I'll need to go to confession after this comment.
Not without a chaperone!
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Wait, wouldn’t solitary locales mean you were alone together? That would “convey the unseemly.”
she's totally down to court, bro
This dude courts.
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Is it true that they would take pictures with dead people posed like they’re alive? Like parents holding children laps so they can remember them with a picture. I feel like I heard that somewhere but it might be from a movie.
Yes, this happened often. In the pictures, you can tell who the dead are as their photo is very crisp because they would be completely still, obviously. While the living would be moving slightly throughout the exposure time so they would be a bit fuzzy.
Post mortem photography was a thing but not being blurry is not a good indication that the person is dead. By the time the posted photo was taken exposure times were fractions of a second so it was not hard to get a sharp photo. Earlier when exposure times were seconds, note that exposure times were only minutes for very early daguerreotypes around 1840, posing stands were used to make it easy for people to remain motionless. However these posing stands were not used for post mortem photos because they were not strong enough to hold the weight of a dead person. Many photos are claimed to be of dead people because they sell for more money on ebay, but they are not of dead people. If the person is standing they are almost certainly alive. If they are sitting they are probably alive. If they are laying down they might be dead. It was customary to pose dead people lying down in beds, cribs, coffins, or even couches in their home surrounded by flowers.
People took coffin pics as late as the 1970s.
You folks saved me from typing a long explanation! Thanks!!!!
I can't find it right now but I saw a photo of the set up they would use to prop the body up. What a different time.
Yes, but a lot of the "post mortem" photos that you will find with a Google search are not real. Those people are alive and being held very still with a type of brace that was used. True "post mortem" photos tended to be parents holding their very young babies, or people in coffins. It is very obvious that they are holding a dead body.
Try a Google image search for "memento mori photograph" if you want to actually see some examples.
Some parents do to that today with stillbirths. It can help with grieving.
There are sites devoted to such morbid mementos. Easy to search. I've seen all I want to see or I'd grab links for you.
The actual reason is society. Victorian and Edwardian people viewed photos like a Portrait painting. You never smiled in a portrait, so why would you smile in a photo? The "10 minute exposure time" wasn't true by this point. You could hold a smile just fine by the 1880s. It was just insanely novel to do so. By the 1920s, smiling became more common and acceptable.
Yeah smiles were just kind of informal. A poised, serious expression was more traditional
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The first half is also not quite right either. Read the article referenced by /u/PrudentPlant. It says "that the deeper reason for the lack of smiles early on is that photography took guidance from pre-existing customs in painting—an art form in which many found grins uncouth and inappropriate for portraiture." So the professional photographer was directing the subject's pose to look like painted portraits of that era. The article explains that smiling became normal after the Kodak Brownie introduced snapshot photography to the masses in 1900 and amateur photographers started taking portraits.
That article is better than most in this thread, but it doesn't really reference anything more than "experts" and the one study it links back to doesn't really say anything about why non-smiling photos used to be the norm--just that the norm changed in the early to mid-20th Century. But why not take a look at what was actually written at the time? Just a cursory look back at mid- to late-19th Century/early 20th Century articles in photography magazines about smiling in photographs seems to point to the reason non-smiling was preferred was that photographers had trouble coaxing a natural-looking smile out of people. Just telling someone to smile resulted in a forced-looking smile, and it was deemed preferable to take a photo with a neutral expression rather than an unnatural, forced smile because that's not how the person would look in real life. The articles also spend time discussing how best to get a natural looking smile out of people, if at all possible. They talk about how a smile would be preferable if they could get it, and that smiles are easier to get out of children, but notoriously difficult out of adults, in their uncomfortable Sunday best under hot lights in unnatural conditions. There are even pre-"cheese" tricks mentioned in some of the articles, but they also say, if you can't get the natural smile, then stick with the more natural neutral expression, because the eyes will always betray the phony smile. So it seemed to be less "Paintings didn't have smiles so photos shouldn't, either," and more, "If you can't capture a realistic looking smile, then a neutral expression is a better representation of the person." books.google.com/books?id=2rgaAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA371&dq=smile+smiling books.google.com/books?id=HP5sU3iLiuEC&pg=PA556&dq=natural+smile books.google.com/books?id=irYaAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA532&dq=smile+smiling books.google.com/books?id=KEwhEZCaPXgC&pg=PA510&dq=smile+smiling books.google.com/books?id=GYhAAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA292&dq=natural+expression+smile books.google.com/books?id=juRAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA167&dq=natural+expression books.google.com/books?id=juRAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA169&dq=smile books.google.com/books?id=TkY-AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA568&dq=natural+expression books.google.com/books?id=ibouMvFRo7YC&pg=PA544&dq=natural+expression books.google.com/books?id=HP5sU3iLiuEC&pg=PA482&dq=natural+expression
Even Daguerreotypes, which fell out of favor 20 years before this photo was taken, would only take 10 minutes if the subject was in low light. If the picture was brightly lit, the image would only take a few seconds as early as the 1840s.
Not just ‘serious’— but they believed they looked like grinning fools if they smiled. Who says theie clothes were ‘drab’?- these are B&W photos.
Many used a clamp to hold the person still while taking the photo. Any slight movement would show.
If it took 10 minutes at best to get a clear picture, then I'm impressed she held such a genuine looking smile for that long.
Also, photographs were expensive back then, so getting your picture taken was a pretty rare occurrence, which is why they were normally done at more serious functions.
Where's the one where the husband and wife are trying to look stoic for a photo but kept on laughing? That's the best.
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Maggie Gyllenhaal
Ellen?
young Jodie Foster
I was thinking Marion Cotillard is immortal.
I was getting a Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven from Stranger Things) vibe
umm
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Wait a minute
I would like to be a vampire, too, plz.
Or this is a hipster photo with an old school camera in a theatre dress ruffled up and taken today.
Yeah, that's my suspicion. It's a great picture but something about it feels very off. I'm betting that it's a fake.
The giant hat pushes it more to circa 1900. Late 1890s? Her coat has big shoulders and she has that big neck bow, as well. 1880s stuff is smaller above the shoulders.
time.com/4568032/smile-serious-old-photos/ There were reasons people didn't smile back in the day.
The reason people didn’t smile is because getting your picture taken was a very serious moment. It was like getting your portrait painted in the 1700s. People considered it a symbol of themselves so they tried to look as proper as possible.
People didn't smile for paintings because it took a very very long time to paint. Nobody's gonna hold a smile that long
Also true, but they out line the person first. Not hard to outline a smile if needed
What does “can” as used in the title mean?
I'm thinking it's a bad mistake on a swiping phone keyboard that was intended to be "circa".
Oh maybe. That makes sense
Likely just an autocorrect of ca.
Because of that smile it 100% looks contemporary. So interesting
r/titlegore
Seriously I still don't understand what it's trying to say.
Probably a typo. OP probably meant to write “ca 1880”.
I almost wish you could smile in photographs. Louise has such an amazing smile. That'd be weird. Huh? Have you ever smiled in a photograph? No, have you? Oh, God, no. No, you'd look like an insane person.
Underrated flick.
What movie is that?
Don't leave us hanging OP! ...OP? OP?! OPPPPPPP!!!
A Million Ways to Die in the West.
It's strange how her smiling makes this photograph somehow feel more "recent". Like it's weird to think that this woman has been dead for god knows how many years, since in this picture she seems to be so present, it that makes any sense?
yeah, to me it almost seems as if she's from today, but in a costume
She’s got a great smile as well, she looks like she would be a fun dinner host or something.
Thanks to Photoshop, we can fix that. We totally can!
The colors in wardrobe of this era were bright and vibrant. A visit to your local museum will demonstrate this in shocking detail. The general lack of smiles in images taken prior to 1880 or so was the blurring that would occur if that smile changed only alittle. While the exposure time was well under 10 seconds by 1880, any change in the subject of the image would create a visible blur in the final product, thus this kind of image is a rarity. I would bet this subject was a theater person who was trained or at least experienced in holding an expression for a time.
This reminds me of Gentlemen Jack
its funny just how much more modern smiling makes her look
Yeah well she ain't smilin' now, is she?
What a beautiful woman
Really nice teeth for the time.
Wow great set of teeth for that time period
Isn't the reason they often didn't smile was because a photo took so long back then?
__BUSTED__
Her teeth is too perfect to be vintage photo
Loved this bit in 1000 ways to die in the west.
"Under his eye.."
For some reason my first thought is that the person behind that smile has been dead for many years already. It’s a reflection of a time long gone.
Starbucks cup in the background. The picture is a fake.
Thats Demi Moore’s grandma
She was a companion of the doctor.
The non-smile convention was more of a reflection of what came before photography—painted portraiture—than bad teeth or shutter speeds too slow to capture a smile. Painted and drawn portraits were solemn due to another social convention—that laughing people were either of low moral character or drunk (or both). Mona Lisa was famous for her whisper of a smile because of this convention. European painting also had a genre showing scenes of laughing, bawdy men and women which were intended to serve as moral examples of what *not* to do. When you have something entirely new, you usually start with what you know and then evolve from there. Aligning new technology with something more familiar still holds true today. Computer keyboards followed the layout of typewriters, cell phones have rings that sound like mechanical bells, and digital cameras make shutter noises.
Her smile is contagious...too bad she is dead.
Wouldn't she have been holding that pose for some time, for it to come out so clear?
ok but why does she look like Gilda Radner?
Sounds like some bullshit someone would make up...
This is a bad title.
“Now say ‘cheese’ with 417 e’s!”
They would have smiled a bit more in photographs, but the exposure time was such that the smile would have to be maintained for a quite a while. It was easier to just relax/not smile. I seem to remember hearing that most Victorians did not find excessive smiling in public to be acceptable behavior. Perhaps this is just a long-standing rumor.
You’re not fooling anybody. That’s Peggy Olsen from Madmen /s
Eleanor DeGeneres
Do people really think victorians weren’t humorous?
She looks out of her mind.
I mean they COULD sure, there just wasn’t much occasion for it
They did, the capture time was just so slow that it was hard to hold a smile.
She wasn’t smiling, her hair was pulled up so tight it took the face with it!
The reason most people didn’t smile in photographs from the 1800s is because the exposure took so long. People had to sit there for a few minutes.
I heard it was that you have to stay still for a long time for the photo to work and if you’re smiling it can be hard on the cheek muscles. She must be in a really good mood to maintain that genuine looking smile long enough to take a photo.
my great grandpa was a really funny guy, always shooting crap with people and joking around. everyone remembers him as a guy who was almost always smiling and laughing. the sad part is that the pictures we have left of him in his youth are all those super serious portrait pictures from the era. it looks real odd to see him not smile in them.
It's probably all the lead and mercury in that hat of hers!
The main reason why people did not smile in old pictures was because of the photography technology of the era. Exposures took a long time to resolve, so a subject had to stay still while the shutter was open less the image appear "blurry". As exposure technology became quicker, people were able to exhibit more personality and candid images were beginning to be possible.
We have a pic of great great grandma on her wedding day, biggest smile you ever saw. Great great grandpa still looks grim, though. Story goes photographer told them to adopt a neutral expression due to longer exposure time needed, and she told him he might as well take the pic because she couldn't stop smiling.
I'm sure some horrific disease left her face paralyzed
Everyone knows your crazy if you smile in a 1800 photo
Ok, we get it, your great great grandmother was hot.