Times may have been tough but early cameras and film (and glass plates) required a very long exposure time so smiling was hard to do. No action pictures either.

They didn't have instantaneous photos like they do today. The people had to stand there in the same fixed pose for a while for the photo to process. It's hard to hold a smile for that length of time so they kept a straight face.

Not only that, but in the earliest daguerrotypes the exposure was so long that they clamped the back of your head in a kind of iron brace to make sure you wouldn't move.

But it's also that the idea that everyone needs to smile all the time is a relatively recent one. Naturally serious people were allowed to be so back then, without having everyone they passed in the street commanding them to smile all the time. To have your natural expression was okay in those days, and a photograph was a big, expensive deal, so it made people even more solemn than usual.

Look at painted portraits all the way back to Holbein. People only smiled if they were naturally smiley people.

I have some pictures of my great great grandparents starting around 1900 or so. Even when they weren't smiling, they didn't have 'resting B face'. I think some people are just naturally more pleasant looking.

Great Grandmother Crigler looked like she was sitting on thumb tacks.

My old family also looked like they were siting on thumb tacks. Some were as miserable IRL as they looked in the photos, sigh.

Were they also bossy, vossy?

I read or heard that having your picture taken in those times was an important and serious event. Nothing to smile or laugh about. I could be way off but that's what sticks in my mind.

For very old pictures check out post mortem photographs on Google. They were propped up, held up. People wanted a rememberance of a loved one who had died.

I read once that having one's photograph taken was considered serious business 'way back when', not to be taken lightly, so it was important to strike a serious pose.

I thought it was because their teeth were rotten and crooked...HAHA! Being pre-dentist times....

Photos were usually taken to memorialize an event such as a wedding. Folks posed very carefully as they knew this is how they would be remembered for all posterity. There weren't going to be any casual snapshots to tell the stories of their lives. Also there were very few copies of the photos which increased their value.

My Grandmother disliked her graduation photo even though she looks very beautiful in a long white dress. She has a very stiff smile and her hands are clenched in fists. She told me she was nervous having her photo taken.

Don't know if true or not, but back then photos were very big deals and considered very formal and that's why people often wore black as it was the hardest dye to create and therefore the most expensive cloth...so they wore their best outfits. So maybe as part of formality they also didn't smile.

I work with a woman who is Filipino. She rarely if ever smiles in her pictures. I told her she has to start getting into the habit. lol

Enlarge this picture from 1904. Just look at all these scowling children. The teacher, in charge of all these kids..... no wonder why she isn't smiling.

And this one, my Dads high school graduating class of 1926.

Igmd, I love it! Look at the boys in the front row with their arms crossed. They do NOT look happy to be there!

Don't let appearances judge the soul. I know many happy people who do not smile often. Doesn't mean a thing.

I looked at my senior yearbook from 1969 and not one of us smiled for senior portraits.

l have a Korean friend who, although she smiles, her mouth and face are in relaxed repose. She says it's just the Asian way and that they think Westerners contort their faces too much, they think it's comical.

rita, interesting...I have noticed that the people that work at the Chinese restaurants always seem to be in a snit...I guess they just think we are stupid for smiling? Weird! I had no idea!

Smiling like a like a fool as my grandmother used to say when she saw someone showing all of their teeth has really only been a recent development. Not certain when doing more than turning up the corners of your mouth became the preferred smile but I think it was only in the late 1990's. Most older photos such as the yearbook above reflected serious life moments.

I’m glad people smile these days and in fact go to Snapchat and add silly things to their pictures.

If I had a dollar for all the times some jerk told me to smile...I’d give it back and kick them in the shins instead of taking the money.

There are lots of old family pictures that my mom wasn’t able to get digitalized but has hung onto, they’re in the only traditional photo album she still has. Nobody on either side of my family looks like they were overjoyed or like they were particularly pleasant to be around. Not. A. One. Scowls and thousand-yard-stares abound.

I like to be reminded to smile b/c I take so many things for granted that it is truly a shame not to be overjoyed by the good fortune. So, if I forget, thank goodness there’s somebody to remind me I have more to smile about than to frown about.

Being told to smile by a guy who usually follows up with a comment about my figure or hitting on me - then calls me a nasty name when I politely say I’m not interested...Yeah I can live without those reminders to smile. Forever. :p

Jenn Codename:Danger - I completely agree! We just had a chat about this at home recently, when I overheard my young adult step-son telling some girl to smile. That is one of my worst memories growing up and when I was a young adult myself. Ugh.

Totally agree with Jenn and Bluebell66! When some strange man is telling me to smile, he's telling me how to behave...less intimidating for him, maybe? Strangers do not have the right to control my emotions or behavior....or to remind me to be grateful for my good fortune. It's just another way society now says it's ok to judge another's appearance. It is not.

I some of the old pictures the people were actually dead. Early photography was expensive for the average person and usually the family had their dear departed picture taken after their death. The dead was posed and propped as if they were alive or look like they were just sleeping. The good photographers could make them look like they were alive. Sometimes the whole family was in the picture with the dead person.

Along with the definite possibility of bad teeth (or none)...some people were probably suffering from medical conditions and living conditions we can't imagine.

In the 1904 grammar school photo, I see that little boys have put their hands in their pockets as long as there have been pockets. (Someone needs to speak to the adult men I see on TV who want to be taken seriously, but who do the same thing.)

Also, life was harder for most people, and that wear and tear showed in their expressions, I believe.

I would just like to state, here and now, that I don't have RBF, I have can't- get- eyeglasses- that- let- me- see -both- near -and- far- without -frowning- or- squinting face.

Some of the ladies on GMA, Today, etc. must go home with dry mouth. Their mouths are wide open from greeting to end of show.

Interesting discussion about smiling or not smiling. I find smiling people appealing. I wouldn’t welcome such suggestion from a creepy fella but I’m happy to say I’m not a creep magnet, ha. I guess one could smile excessively to the point of looking like a moron but I don’t usually notice that. Most people seem irritated or hurried or glued to the phone.

I’ve been creeped on at Target, wearing an oversized sweatshirt long enough to nearly reach my knees and yoga pants, no makeup and my hair up under a scarf wrap (because it needs to be washed); creeped on in parking garages when going to court on behalf of clients; creeped on at Costco’s gas station while filling up the tank of my car; at the mall; with my husband literally no more than 6 feet away (he’s good at chasing creeps off, but one dude hit on me while the mister was paying at the cash register for our takeout...)...Where have I *not* been creeped on would be a much shorter list.

There’s a sizeable population of men who clearly lose all ability to not tell women how to ‘woman in public’ when they encounter them in public settings. And a disturbing number of men don’t think they’re doing anything wrong when they are being creepy - they get mad when their overtures are declined and suddenly the woman they were all “baby, baby, hey beautiful why won’t you talk to me, smile honey!”-ing for the previous 10+ minutes is being called the b-word and the c-word by Creepster Von CreepyMan. It’s worse than mansplaining or manspreading, it’s irritating, and the guys in the worst of these encounters I’ve experience should be grateful that I dont have a golf club or baseball bat within reach.

Jenn Codename: Danger: Where are you meeting guys like this? I don't think I've ever had that type of experience that even when I was younger and single.

I sympathize Jenn I too used to have similar problems when younger up until my early 50's. Although someone will correct me almost every woman that has breasts that are larger than a certain size or has curves will have had that problem.

However a couple of months ago I had to smile at a man who commented when I was asked if I was over 65. I could tell his "And well preserved" just popped out. Helped that he was blushing when I looked at him.

I recently FINALLY got a "rogues gallery" of old family pictures hung at the bottom of my basement steps (semi-finished basement). One family portrait caught the eye of my almost 18 yr old grandson who was hanging them for me. It was a portrait of my late father's entire family, including HIS grandmother, taken on the porch of the old family home in SW Missouri. Now, my father was the youngest of 10 children and he was born in 1901. He appears to be 2-3 in this picture. I have no idea who took this portrait in this dirt-poor tiny little town.

But oh my, what a dour lot they appear to be! Not only are there no smiles, but actual frowns! I do remember my aunts and uncles and some were actually quite jolly types. But apparently smiling for photos was not appropriate.

BTW, my father's grandmother was born in 1817. My father married later in life, and was almost 42 when I was born, so between being the youngest by 21 years, and having me late, we skipped at least two generations. When I was in school and had to do a family tree project, my teachers would always "correct" my paper and say I had mistaken my grandmother for my great-grandmother, as it was simply not possible that my grandmother was born in 1855. Well, she was. And no, I'm not 110 - I'm just 74.

Maybe the 1904 frowners knew the 1918 flu pandemic was coming.

@adellabedella

I don’t set out to meet these guys, they just come out of the woodwork and act like creeps openly in public. It’s almost comical how often it happens, except for I don’t find being creeped on at all funny!

@maifleur

Whether the woman is dressed ‘modestly’ or not, the clothing that looks conservative on those with less curves can look more provocative on someone very curvy. Trying to find the balance between looking much bigger overall because I’m wearing the equivalent of a potato sack and Jessica Rabbit is a lot harder than it would seem. And properly supportive underpinnings are very expensive in small band large cup sizes, it’s insane!

Having to learn as a teenager that you must keep some distance between yourself and the older men who have a reputation for groping is the kind of thing that I hope we’re really starting to put an end to. The girls growing up today deserve a world where that lesson is no longer accepted as part of the process of becoming an adult woman.

Jenn by the time I was 11 I was very fully developed, very large in proportion to my body, and learned that very quickly. Have always worn oversized tops and non-form fitting bottoms because of that. I am barely 5 feet tall and the distance between where the band lies and my armpit unless I wanted to be poked continually precluded the proper support of underwires. Thank goodness for balcony and stretch bands with fabric cups before sports bras came along.