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The black hole photographs: Unpublished images from America’s great depression

215 points by grimgrin 5y ago

Waterluvian 5y ago
Forgive me if this sounds insensitive but I’m curious for some feedback: Were people uglier back then? Is it my own biases based on clothing and hair style? Is it because of the type of film? Better dental today? More opportunity to adjust one’s appearance with disposable income today? But most curiously: does anyone else have this passing thought when looking at older photos? Or am I just betraying my own shallow vanity?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- thevagrant 5y ago
  If you look at the war documentary "They shall not grow old" you may come to the same conclusion. A good portion of people in that era were malnourished. If I recall correctly, the documentary mentions the army had to do a fair bit to get recruits into shape (by feeding them well and putting them through training). Lack of dental and fluoridated water may be another factor. I suspect back then it was also more common to smoke.
  - shagie 5y ago
    The National School Lunch program was signed into law by Truman in 1946. Its purpose was stated as to "safeguard the health and well-being of the Nation’s children" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_School_Lunch_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_School_Lunch_Act https://www.thecongressproject.com/national-school-lunch-act-1946 https://www.thecongressproject.com/national-school-lunch-act... > Additionally, because this occurred in a post-war Congress, another argument to make funds permanent came from the fact that men were rejected from Selective Service during the war because of poor nutrition when they were children.
  - abrookewood 5y ago
    This is an excellent documentary. Thoroughly recommend it if you have even a passing interest in WW1, though it's heart-breaking. Produced and directed by Peter Jackson: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7905466/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7905466/
    - ericd 5y ago
      It's also a technical tour de force, they turned shaky black and white footage with variable frame rate (from early hand cranked video cameras) into almost-cinema-grade color footage, and they recreated the sound using speakers local to the areas of the soldiers, combined with lip reading. It's an incredible work.
- vidanay 5y ago
  It's an indicator of the level of health and wealth in modern society. If you are able to read and reply to this thread, then you live in a country/culture where your wealth is orders of magnitude greater than those shown in the photos.
- joe_the_user 5y ago
  People smiled less in the 1930s. Smiling has increased with media exposure over time. To me, the people actually look healthier. Few extreme overbites or underbites. Decent posture, strong chins, few bellies sticking out (indicating metabolic syndrome). Edit: and sure, missing teeth. And not worrying about media, people with the missing teeth don't seem ashamed of them.
  - vlunkr 5y ago
    > Smiling has increased with media exposure over time. That sounds really made up.
    - zuminator 5y ago
      It may not be far off from the truth. It's been argued that, not that people smiled less overall back then, but that in earlier times, photograph etiquette was in line with painting etiquette. You were expected to make a serious face preserved for posterity. It's only over time as photos become more spontaneous and ubiquitous that we have adopted the cultural vocabulary of smiling in response to having our picture taken, or so the argument goes. See here: https://time.com/4568032/smile-serious-old-photos/ https://time.com/4568032/smile-serious-old-photos/
- fernly 5y ago
  To me, kids and younger adults look fine, put them in current fashions and they'd pass today without comment. It's the middle-aged and older ones whose faces are really ravaged by time and experience. And the teeth, oh lordy.
  - BLKNSLVR 5y ago
    Can these old images be used, if ever it becomes necessary, to fight a growing movement against fluoridation of drinking water? Tangentially: only because the winter olympics are on, but do there exist snowboarders that have anything but perfect teeth?
    - pbhjpbhj 5y ago
      You have to be pretty wealthy to afford to snowboard (good nutrition, good healthcare, etc.). Then, if you get to the upper echelons of the sport you're looking at getting advertising deals, and so, looking like someone advertiser's want to use images of is probably really helpful.
      - joeman1000 5y ago
        Going by James Nestor’s observations and research in his book ‘Breath’: he relays that a Victorian dentist notes “the better the school, the worse the teeth”. Teeth straightness and overcrowding are ‘upper-class’ issues. Poorer people, in the authors claims, are exposed to tougher food. The increased chewing they do actually causes the palate to grow correctly and without crowding. Soft food does the opposite.
        tsol 5y ago
        I've heard this before, but it isn't really true any more. We all eat soft, processed foods now with little differences between classes. Although we also have much more advanced dentistry, so it isn't necessarily very obvious either
        5y ago
- Spooky23 5y ago
  Country people were farmers or farm workers. Farm prosperity varies a lot, but always involved back breaking physical work, the type of work that breaks your body. The poorer the farmer, the harder the work. They also had big families that were hard to feed, and at best had occasional access to a doctor in private practice who had a limited array of tools. My grandparents families were farmers back in Ireland, born just after the First World War. My maternal grandfather was the 4th oldest son, and my grandmother the 9th child and 3rd daughter. They were fortunate in that their family owned (and still owns) the farm, but unfortunate in that they had no job prospects of any kind at home. Literally. In spite of relative prosperity, they didn’t have running water and parts of the houses had dirt floors at the time. My grandfather had a great story about seeing an electric light for the first time — in 1925/6 in a pub where a salesman was demonstrating a battery lamp. These fold were poor, often worked for most daylight hours, wore homespun clothing often, had no electric light, makeup, etc. The men often died young and the women had 2-3 times more children than today. Glamour was not an everyday consideration!
  - kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 5y ago
    In short, life was harder and there were more important things to worry about.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- lostmsu 5y ago
  With 2 exceptions with gum problems people on the pictures look totally fine to me.
- Jedd 5y ago
  In addition to the reasons provided, I'd posit two additional contributing factors: An absence of readily accessible - nay oppressively omnipresent - pop-culture & advertising, pushing infeasibly perfect images, and A relative scarcity of mirrors. Yes, 'proper' mirrors had been invented a hundred years before this era, but even by the early 20th century they'd still have been a luxury item, especially for people in this kind of pervasive poverty.
  - snek_case 5y ago
    Another thing that was lacking back then is digital cameras, or even affordable chemical film. At the time, photography was a lot more expensive, and you probably only got one shot of a person. Today, we can get a preview on a digital camera's screen and we can take as many photos as we want, and then edit them afterwards. That just leads to better looking photos being presented.
    - Fricken 5y ago
      Point and shoot cameras such as the Kodak Brownie were pretty affordable back then. When released in 1900 the Brownie cost 1$, which would be about 35$ in today's money.
      - snek_case 5y ago
        Much more affordable than I thought. Still probably doesn't make for very good photos though.
- kingkawn 5y ago
  It’s you
- dullcrisp 5y ago
  I looked through the photos after seeing this comment expecting to see some ugly people, and now I'm afraid to look in a mirror.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  I don't think they're any worse or better than today. Except that dental care has improved a lot! The working mens' clothes look very comfortable to me.
- moonshinefe 5y ago
  I didn't notice a huge difference, but your comment reminded me of something my grandma said in her later years (she died around 2018 and was well into her 90s, so she grew up in the 30s). "All the young people these days are so gosh darned good looking" as if it blew her away, lol. So maybe there's something to that, I don't know.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  Sun damage is probably responsible for most of it.
- the_af 5y ago
  I honestly don't understand how you can see ugly people in enough of those photos to consider remarking on it. I mean, some are homely and some are regular looking, but others are quite good looking. I see plenty of ugly young people in photos today. This isn't a feel good or a "good old days" kind of comment. I honestly see beautiful people in many of those photos.
  - chrisbrandow 5y ago
    I had a related thought as the commenter above. I was just struck by how the hardness of those years clearly was visible on most of those folk. It clearly detracted from their physical appearance. Beauty != their value and uniqueness as people.
    - the_af 5y ago
      > Beauty != their value and uniqueness as people. I totally understand that and I'm not conflating both. I truly mean that many of the people in these photos look good to me. Not "beauty inside", but actual physical beauty. Obviously not all of them, but enough that a remark about people being uglier back then seems out of place to me.
- chrisbrandow 5y ago
  Money helps you look better in a lot of ways. A few of those pics show the impact of dental health alone, but also persistent hunger and stress clearly wear/break down aspects of beauty.
- dougmwne 5y ago
  Who are you comparing them to? People posing for the 'gram? Celebrities? Tinder photos? Beauty influencers? But yeah, dental care, sunblock, and a shower can go a long way.
  - antupis 5y ago
    Also stress is probably whole different level than modern day people.
- throwawaycities 5y ago
  Funny my thought was I didn’t see very many obese people, and that if the people in these photos were looking at photos of modern society they would probably wonder why so many people are overweight. I know it was the depression, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that’s not the reason (I don’t imagine any of them were obese prior to the depression). Anyway, your point could be just a bias…I’d say spend some time scrolling through something like “people of Walmart” photos and see if you change your mind.
  - supernova87a 5y ago
    I was just about to comment on exactly this. The number / fraction of obese people in these photos is tiny compared to the people you see in modern US life now.
- whatshisface 5y ago
  What's your reference for attractiveness, your own friends and family, or IMDB? If the latter, therein lies the answer.
- scythe 5y ago
  You're witnessing a few things, I think: - the culture of modesty affected both men's and women's dress and grooming habits, women somewhat more, but men also quite significantly - stylistic haircuts were not available in rural settings without professional barbers/hairdressers - clothes were not as stretchy; cotton and wool were coarser, nylon more rigid, polyester and spandex nonexistent - the economics of the time favored thicker, more durable fabrics over thin, friable, wears-a-hole-after-one-year fast fashion fluff - sun exposure, particularly among white people in the United States (which is much sunnier than Europe), was rarely avoided or mitigated, particularly among the working class - childhood nutrition was worse, particularly among the lower classes in the period between the first wave of enclosure/monoculture/industrialization of agriculture and the dawn of nutrition science (hence fortification) - these are images that the government did not want to show people, of course there's a higher prevalence of unattractive people!
  - learc83 5y ago
    > sun exposure, particularly among white people in the United States (which is much sunnier than Europe), was rarely avoided or mitigated, particularly among the working class Sure farmers in the 1930s had more sun exposure than your average office worker does today. But it was certainly not rare to avoid or mitigate sun exposure. Look at the pictures. Notice the bonnets, hats, and long sleeves that the people working outside are wearing. My great grandmother (working class, born in 1912) always wore long sleeves, long pants, and a hat to do work outside. Even in the middle of July in Georgia. This was normal. https://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Roy-Stryker-FSA-black-hole-photos-213.jpg https://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Roy-Stryker-... https://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Roy-Stryker-FSA-black-hole-photos-13.jpg https://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Roy-Stryker-... https://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Roy-Stryker-FSA-black-hole-photos-30.jpg https://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Roy-Stryker-... > these are images that the government did not want to show people, of course there's a higher prevalence of unattractive people! Read some of the comments above by ars. That’s not actually what happened. Almost every picture has another slightly different version that was published. These weren’t censored, it was just an editor editing.
- beachy 5y ago
  Dental hygiene has come a long way since then. Photos of British troops in WWII often show terrible looking teeth, not just on one unfortunate but whole groups of people.
- userbinator 5y ago
  To me, the people in these pictures look absolutely normal and natural, unlike the ridiculously "enhanced" (often by the camera itself) photos which are far more common today. More opportunity to adjust one’s appearance with disposable income today? These are from The Depression, so there'd certainly not be much in the way of wearing cosmetics. Frankly, I think the modern trend of making people's skin almost plastic-like in appearance looks very weird and unnatural.
- vogt 5y ago
  I applaud you for at least being introspective and considered when asking this question, even if I didn't necessarily feel the same while looking at them. Some of the folks replying to you would be better served to approaching their responses similarly.
- Fricken 5y ago
  I saw 2 instances of bad teeth, otherwise I'm not sure what you're referencing. They all look pretty normal for their age to me.
- t-3 5y ago
  It's just you. They all look like normal people to me.
- dncornholio 5y ago
  People were way more beautiful then IMO. Nothing is hidden, you see so much in each of their faces. Nothing is fake. I love it.
- verisimi 5y ago
  I think there are some people with missing teeth, they look grubbier - everyone seems to be struggling, I don't think we are seeing privileged people. But what is also interesting to me is that there weren't any wonky faces, lopsided smiles, droopy eyes.
- verytrivial 5y ago
  > Were people uglier back then? I think in the same way then as now, media is selective in amplifying certain ideas of human asthetics. There are millions of similarly poor, hard-working people now who don't spend a lot of time tweaking their image. These people are not in your Insta feed either. (But I think this specific set of photographs sought out a more unbiased view of whomever was working in these areas, and I can see why people were and are furious about the casual destruction of these records!)
ars 5y ago
This is interesting, but I could do without the conspiracy theory: "But back then the desire to show the places and faces of America in the mire was controlled to fit a message." Which is utter nonsense. They were blackholed simply because he felt they weren't good photos. Plenty of very similar photos were published. There was zero "message control" here. Here is a direct link to the photos: https://www.loc.gov/pictures/search/?q=%22hole+punch%22&co=fsa&st=gallery https://www.loc.gov/pictures/search/?q=%22hole+punch%22&co=f... without the false conspiracy theory commentary. If you browse the photos you'll see most are simply poor, or duplicate photos, and if you click through you'll find links to similar photos that were published. @dang if you see this, could you change the url to the loc.gov link and the title to "The Black Hole Photographs: Unpublished Images from America’s Great Depression"
- dmix 5y ago
  The headline is basically clickbait. Content is fine.
  - ars 5y ago
    The photos in the content are fine, the words on the other hand are mostly false.
- nomel 5y ago
  How are you so easily making the distinction between "person in power doesn't want to post photos because he doesn't like them" and "person in power doesn't want to post photos because it shows something they don't like"? > Plenty of very similar photos were published. Do you have an example, from when this person was leading the organization?
  - ars 5y ago
    I gave you a link. Click on it. Pick a random photo, there will be a link to a published similar photo in the description of the photo. The censored nonsense in the article is simply not true.
SquibblesRedux 5y ago
Restoring these photographs is a perfect project for machine learning. Does anyone know a grad student or researcher who would be willing to take on a restoration project for these damaged photographs?
- gruez 5y ago
  If you're talking about "restoring" in the sense of colorizing it: Do we really need yet another grad student to work on a colorizing-with-ML project? There's dozens of such projects already. Posting colorized black and white photos was a popular trend a few years ago, but nowadays it's died down. If you're talking about "restoring" in the sense of fixing the holes: I doubt ML can do anything when a huge section of the picture is missing. Any detail you put in would be hallucinated and not representative of reality.
  - Tempest1981 5y ago
    > Any detail you put in would be hallucinated and not representative of reality. Sure, but Photoshop (for example) has a feature that does just that: Content-Aware Fill. https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/content-aware-fill.html https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/content-aware-fill.h...
  - nomel 5y ago
    > Any detail you put in would be hallucinated and not representative of reality. A good algorithm will absolutely represent reality, otherwise you would notice that it's not working. It may not reflect the actual reality behind the black hole, but it would remove the whole, making it indistinguishable from what you would think should be behind the hole. With claims of "the hole is part of the history" aside, it would make these photos much easier to look at, allowing one to focus on the content of the photo, rather than the hole.
    - VWWHFSfQ 5y ago
      > it would remove the whole, making it indistinguishable from what you would think should be behind the hole There is no algorithm in existence or will ever be discovered in our lifetimes that could cover those black holes with enough accuracy, or creativity, to make it indistinguishable from the real thing.
Atlas667 5y ago
[flagged]
at_a_remove 5y ago
Reminds me a bit of Wisconsin Death Trip in a kind of bleak and unvarnished sense.
niels_olson 5y ago
Soundgarden’s Black Hole Sun for those of a certain age: https://youtu.be/3mbBbFH9fAg https://youtu.be/3mbBbFH9fAg
- WalterGR 5y ago
  What’s the connection?
  - tcbawo 5y ago
    From the article: "These pictures each contain an inky black disc of nothing. A black sun hangs with pendant menace and mystery. But they’re neither objects nor stains, rather punch holes made by Roy Stryker, director of the FSA’s documentary photograph program, and his team of editors. The holes marked pictures as unfit for purpose."
bongoman37 5y ago
simonebrunozzi 5y ago
> But they’re neither objects nor stains, rather punch holes made by Roy Stryker, director of the FSA’s documentary photograph program, and his team of editors. The holes marked pictures as unfit for purpose. Really interesting.
emrahcom 5y ago
https://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Roy-Stryker-FSA-black-hole-photos-5.jpg https://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Roy-Stryker-... Isn't that Walter White?
_qua 5y ago
So little obesity back then, it's noticable even from this small sampling.
- antihero 5y ago
  Food wasn't disgusting processed shit, and there was probably less of it. I wonder how life expectancy was, comparably, however?
  - micromacrofoot 5y ago
    you don’t have to buy processed food, what people ate 100 years ago is still readily available life expectancy actually went up by about 6 years over the great depression (early 60s), and is generally better during recessions (though the suicide rate also goes up). Some speculation is that people work less and sleep more, have less money to spend on alcohol and other vices, and there are fewer workplace injuries
    - cheeseomlit 5y ago
      >what people ate 100 years ago is still readily available Is it? https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-and-nutrition-loss/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-an...
      - micromacrofoot 5y ago
        > “Vegetables are extraordinarily rich in nutrients and beneficial phytochemicals,” he reported. “They are still there, and vegetables and fruits are our best sources for these.” Regardless, it's somewhat avoidable by buying produce from local sources or from organic farms.
  - gwbas1c 5y ago
    Much more human effort went into making food back then. Our food is much cheaper than in the past. (Assuming you live in the US and are middle-class.) You can eat heathy if you want to. It's your choice what you eat. You can choose to only buy unprocessed food and make everything from scratch. You can bring your own meals with you when you travel away from your home. The fact that we have fresh vegetables imported from thousands of miles away, and plenty of frozen (but otherwise minimally-processed) food means you can have a better diet than back then. It's all about your choices.
anovikov 5y ago
What was supposed to be scary in those pics?
idiocrat 5y ago
If you are interested in the atmosphere of those times, at least how it was seen through public media, there is a very interesting and informative docu movie called "Brother Can You Spare a Dime" from 1975, 1h 43m. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072742/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072742/ IMDB describes it as: "A nostalgic look back at the Great Depression with contemporary archival footage and film clips picturing James Cagney as an American Everyman."
xwdv 5y ago
Fucking idiot punching holes in photos so unnecessary, good thing we have machine learning to fill in the holes with what we could expect to see in their place.

215 points by grimgrin 5y ago

Forgive me if this sounds insensitive but I’m curious for some feedback: Were people uglier back then? Is it my own biases based on clothing and hair style? Is it because of the type of film? Better dental today? More opportunity to adjust one’s appearance with disposable income today? But most curiously: does anyone else have this passing thought when looking at older photos? Or am I just betraying my own shallow vanity?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
thevagrant 5y ago
If you look at the war documentary "They shall not grow old" you may come to the same conclusion. A good portion of people in that era were malnourished. If I recall correctly, the documentary mentions the army had to do a fair bit to get recruits into shape (by feeding them well and putting them through training). Lack of dental and fluoridated water may be another factor. I suspect back then it was also more common to smoke.
- shagie 5y ago
  The National School Lunch program was signed into law by Truman in 1946. Its purpose was stated as to "safeguard the health and well-being of the Nation’s children" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_School_Lunch_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_School_Lunch_Act https://www.thecongressproject.com/national-school-lunch-act-1946 https://www.thecongressproject.com/national-school-lunch-act... > Additionally, because this occurred in a post-war Congress, another argument to make funds permanent came from the fact that men were rejected from Selective Service during the war because of poor nutrition when they were children.
- abrookewood 5y ago
  This is an excellent documentary. Thoroughly recommend it if you have even a passing interest in WW1, though it's heart-breaking. Produced and directed by Peter Jackson: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7905466/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7905466/
  - ericd 5y ago
    It's also a technical tour de force, they turned shaky black and white footage with variable frame rate (from early hand cranked video cameras) into almost-cinema-grade color footage, and they recreated the sound using speakers local to the areas of the soldiers, combined with lip reading. It's an incredible work.
vidanay 5y ago
It's an indicator of the level of health and wealth in modern society. If you are able to read and reply to this thread, then you live in a country/culture where your wealth is orders of magnitude greater than those shown in the photos.
joe_the_user 5y ago
People smiled less in the 1930s. Smiling has increased with media exposure over time. To me, the people actually look healthier. Few extreme overbites or underbites. Decent posture, strong chins, few bellies sticking out (indicating metabolic syndrome). Edit: and sure, missing teeth. And not worrying about media, people with the missing teeth don't seem ashamed of them.
- vlunkr 5y ago
  > Smiling has increased with media exposure over time. That sounds really made up.
  - zuminator 5y ago
    It may not be far off from the truth. It's been argued that, not that people smiled less overall back then, but that in earlier times, photograph etiquette was in line with painting etiquette. You were expected to make a serious face preserved for posterity. It's only over time as photos become more spontaneous and ubiquitous that we have adopted the cultural vocabulary of smiling in response to having our picture taken, or so the argument goes. See here: https://time.com/4568032/smile-serious-old-photos/ https://time.com/4568032/smile-serious-old-photos/
fernly 5y ago
To me, kids and younger adults look fine, put them in current fashions and they'd pass today without comment. It's the middle-aged and older ones whose faces are really ravaged by time and experience. And the teeth, oh lordy.
- BLKNSLVR 5y ago
  Can these old images be used, if ever it becomes necessary, to fight a growing movement against fluoridation of drinking water? Tangentially: only because the winter olympics are on, but do there exist snowboarders that have anything but perfect teeth?
  - pbhjpbhj 5y ago
    You have to be pretty wealthy to afford to snowboard (good nutrition, good healthcare, etc.). Then, if you get to the upper echelons of the sport you're looking at getting advertising deals, and so, looking like someone advertiser's want to use images of is probably really helpful.
    - joeman1000 5y ago
      Going by James Nestor’s observations and research in his book ‘Breath’: he relays that a Victorian dentist notes “the better the school, the worse the teeth”. Teeth straightness and overcrowding are ‘upper-class’ issues. Poorer people, in the authors claims, are exposed to tougher food. The increased chewing they do actually causes the palate to grow correctly and without crowding. Soft food does the opposite.
      - tsol 5y ago
        I've heard this before, but it isn't really true any more. We all eat soft, processed foods now with little differences between classes. Although we also have much more advanced dentistry, so it isn't necessarily very obvious either
        5y ago
Spooky23 5y ago
Country people were farmers or farm workers. Farm prosperity varies a lot, but always involved back breaking physical work, the type of work that breaks your body. The poorer the farmer, the harder the work. They also had big families that were hard to feed, and at best had occasional access to a doctor in private practice who had a limited array of tools. My grandparents families were farmers back in Ireland, born just after the First World War. My maternal grandfather was the 4th oldest son, and my grandmother the 9th child and 3rd daughter. They were fortunate in that their family owned (and still owns) the farm, but unfortunate in that they had no job prospects of any kind at home. Literally. In spite of relative prosperity, they didn’t have running water and parts of the houses had dirt floors at the time. My grandfather had a great story about seeing an electric light for the first time — in 1925/6 in a pub where a salesman was demonstrating a battery lamp. These fold were poor, often worked for most daylight hours, wore homespun clothing often, had no electric light, makeup, etc. The men often died young and the women had 2-3 times more children than today. Glamour was not an everyday consideration!
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 5y ago
  In short, life was harder and there were more important things to worry about.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
lostmsu 5y ago
With 2 exceptions with gum problems people on the pictures look totally fine to me.
Jedd 5y ago
In addition to the reasons provided, I'd posit two additional contributing factors: An absence of readily accessible - nay oppressively omnipresent - pop-culture & advertising, pushing infeasibly perfect images, and A relative scarcity of mirrors. Yes, 'proper' mirrors had been invented a hundred years before this era, but even by the early 20th century they'd still have been a luxury item, especially for people in this kind of pervasive poverty.
- snek_case 5y ago
  Another thing that was lacking back then is digital cameras, or even affordable chemical film. At the time, photography was a lot more expensive, and you probably only got one shot of a person. Today, we can get a preview on a digital camera's screen and we can take as many photos as we want, and then edit them afterwards. That just leads to better looking photos being presented.
  - Fricken 5y ago
    Point and shoot cameras such as the Kodak Brownie were pretty affordable back then. When released in 1900 the Brownie cost 1$, which would be about 35$ in today's money.
    - snek_case 5y ago
      Much more affordable than I thought. Still probably doesn't make for very good photos though.
kingkawn 5y ago
It’s you
dullcrisp 5y ago
I looked through the photos after seeing this comment expecting to see some ugly people, and now I'm afraid to look in a mirror.
WalterBright 5y ago
I don't think they're any worse or better than today. Except that dental care has improved a lot! The working mens' clothes look very comfortable to me.
moonshinefe 5y ago
I didn't notice a huge difference, but your comment reminded me of something my grandma said in her later years (she died around 2018 and was well into her 90s, so she grew up in the 30s). "All the young people these days are so gosh darned good looking" as if it blew her away, lol. So maybe there's something to that, I don't know.
heavyset_go 5y ago
Sun damage is probably responsible for most of it.
the_af 5y ago
I honestly don't understand how you can see ugly people in enough of those photos to consider remarking on it. I mean, some are homely and some are regular looking, but others are quite good looking. I see plenty of ugly young people in photos today. This isn't a feel good or a "good old days" kind of comment. I honestly see beautiful people in many of those photos.
- chrisbrandow 5y ago
  I had a related thought as the commenter above. I was just struck by how the hardness of those years clearly was visible on most of those folk. It clearly detracted from their physical appearance. Beauty != their value and uniqueness as people.
  - the_af 5y ago
    > Beauty != their value and uniqueness as people. I totally understand that and I'm not conflating both. I truly mean that many of the people in these photos look good to me. Not "beauty inside", but actual physical beauty. Obviously not all of them, but enough that a remark about people being uglier back then seems out of place to me.
chrisbrandow 5y ago
Money helps you look better in a lot of ways. A few of those pics show the impact of dental health alone, but also persistent hunger and stress clearly wear/break down aspects of beauty.
dougmwne 5y ago
Who are you comparing them to? People posing for the 'gram? Celebrities? Tinder photos? Beauty influencers? But yeah, dental care, sunblock, and a shower can go a long way.
- antupis 5y ago
  Also stress is probably whole different level than modern day people.
throwawaycities 5y ago
Funny my thought was I didn’t see very many obese people, and that if the people in these photos were looking at photos of modern society they would probably wonder why so many people are overweight. I know it was the depression, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that’s not the reason (I don’t imagine any of them were obese prior to the depression). Anyway, your point could be just a bias…I’d say spend some time scrolling through something like “people of Walmart” photos and see if you change your mind.
- supernova87a 5y ago
  I was just about to comment on exactly this. The number / fraction of obese people in these photos is tiny compared to the people you see in modern US life now.
whatshisface 5y ago
What's your reference for attractiveness, your own friends and family, or IMDB? If the latter, therein lies the answer.
scythe 5y ago
You're witnessing a few things, I think: - the culture of modesty affected both men's and women's dress and grooming habits, women somewhat more, but men also quite significantly - stylistic haircuts were not available in rural settings without professional barbers/hairdressers - clothes were not as stretchy; cotton and wool were coarser, nylon more rigid, polyester and spandex nonexistent - the economics of the time favored thicker, more durable fabrics over thin, friable, wears-a-hole-after-one-year fast fashion fluff - sun exposure, particularly among white people in the United States (which is much sunnier than Europe), was rarely avoided or mitigated, particularly among the working class - childhood nutrition was worse, particularly among the lower classes in the period between the first wave of enclosure/monoculture/industrialization of agriculture and the dawn of nutrition science (hence fortification) - these are images that the government did not want to show people, of course there's a higher prevalence of unattractive people!
- learc83 5y ago
  > sun exposure, particularly among white people in the United States (which is much sunnier than Europe), was rarely avoided or mitigated, particularly among the working class Sure farmers in the 1930s had more sun exposure than your average office worker does today. But it was certainly not rare to avoid or mitigate sun exposure. Look at the pictures. Notice the bonnets, hats, and long sleeves that the people working outside are wearing. My great grandmother (working class, born in 1912) always wore long sleeves, long pants, and a hat to do work outside. Even in the middle of July in Georgia. This was normal. https://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Roy-Stryker-FSA-black-hole-photos-213.jpg https://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Roy-Stryker-... https://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Roy-Stryker-FSA-black-hole-photos-13.jpg https://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Roy-Stryker-... https://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Roy-Stryker-FSA-black-hole-photos-30.jpg https://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Roy-Stryker-... > these are images that the government did not want to show people, of course there's a higher prevalence of unattractive people! Read some of the comments above by ars. That’s not actually what happened. Almost every picture has another slightly different version that was published. These weren’t censored, it was just an editor editing.
beachy 5y ago
Dental hygiene has come a long way since then. Photos of British troops in WWII often show terrible looking teeth, not just on one unfortunate but whole groups of people.
userbinator 5y ago
To me, the people in these pictures look absolutely normal and natural, unlike the ridiculously "enhanced" (often by the camera itself) photos which are far more common today. More opportunity to adjust one’s appearance with disposable income today? These are from The Depression, so there'd certainly not be much in the way of wearing cosmetics. Frankly, I think the modern trend of making people's skin almost plastic-like in appearance looks very weird and unnatural.
vogt 5y ago
I applaud you for at least being introspective and considered when asking this question, even if I didn't necessarily feel the same while looking at them. Some of the folks replying to you would be better served to approaching their responses similarly.
Fricken 5y ago
I saw 2 instances of bad teeth, otherwise I'm not sure what you're referencing. They all look pretty normal for their age to me.
t-3 5y ago
It's just you. They all look like normal people to me.
dncornholio 5y ago
People were way more beautiful then IMO. Nothing is hidden, you see so much in each of their faces. Nothing is fake. I love it.
verisimi 5y ago
I think there are some people with missing teeth, they look grubbier - everyone seems to be struggling, I don't think we are seeing privileged people. But what is also interesting to me is that there weren't any wonky faces, lopsided smiles, droopy eyes.
verytrivial 5y ago
> Were people uglier back then? I think in the same way then as now, media is selective in amplifying certain ideas of human asthetics. There are millions of similarly poor, hard-working people now who don't spend a lot of time tweaking their image. These people are not in your Insta feed either. (But I think this specific set of photographs sought out a more unbiased view of whomever was working in these areas, and I can see why people were and are furious about the casual destruction of these records!)

ars 5y ago

This is interesting, but I could do without the conspiracy theory: "But back then the desire to show the places and faces of America in the mire was controlled to fit a message." Which is utter nonsense. They were blackholed simply because he felt they weren't good photos. Plenty of very similar photos were published. There was zero "message control" here. Here is a direct link to the photos: https://www.loc.gov/pictures/search/?q=%22hole+punch%22&co=fsa&st=gallery https://www.loc.gov/pictures/search/?q=%22hole+punch%22&co=f... without the false conspiracy theory commentary. If you browse the photos you'll see most are simply poor, or duplicate photos, and if you click through you'll find links to similar photos that were published. @dang if you see this, could you change the url to the loc.gov link and the title to "The Black Hole Photographs: Unpublished Images from America’s Great Depression"

dmix 5y ago
The headline is basically clickbait. Content is fine.
- ars 5y ago
  The photos in the content are fine, the words on the other hand are mostly false.
nomel 5y ago
How are you so easily making the distinction between "person in power doesn't want to post photos because he doesn't like them" and "person in power doesn't want to post photos because it shows something they don't like"? > Plenty of very similar photos were published. Do you have an example, from when this person was leading the organization?
- ars 5y ago
  I gave you a link. Click on it. Pick a random photo, there will be a link to a published similar photo in the description of the photo. The censored nonsense in the article is simply not true.

SquibblesRedux 5y ago

Restoring these photographs is a perfect project for machine learning. Does anyone know a grad student or researcher who would be willing to take on a restoration project for these damaged photographs?

gruez 5y ago
If you're talking about "restoring" in the sense of colorizing it: Do we really need yet another grad student to work on a colorizing-with-ML project? There's dozens of such projects already. Posting colorized black and white photos was a popular trend a few years ago, but nowadays it's died down. If you're talking about "restoring" in the sense of fixing the holes: I doubt ML can do anything when a huge section of the picture is missing. Any detail you put in would be hallucinated and not representative of reality.
- Tempest1981 5y ago
  > Any detail you put in would be hallucinated and not representative of reality. Sure, but Photoshop (for example) has a feature that does just that: Content-Aware Fill. https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/content-aware-fill.html https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/content-aware-fill.h...
- nomel 5y ago
  > Any detail you put in would be hallucinated and not representative of reality. A good algorithm will absolutely represent reality, otherwise you would notice that it's not working. It may not reflect the actual reality behind the black hole, but it would remove the whole, making it indistinguishable from what you would think should be behind the hole. With claims of "the hole is part of the history" aside, it would make these photos much easier to look at, allowing one to focus on the content of the photo, rather than the hole.
  - VWWHFSfQ 5y ago
    > it would remove the whole, making it indistinguishable from what you would think should be behind the hole There is no algorithm in existence or will ever be discovered in our lifetimes that could cover those black holes with enough accuracy, or creativity, to make it indistinguishable from the real thing.

Atlas667 5y ago

[flagged]

at_a_remove 5y ago

Reminds me a bit of Wisconsin Death Trip in a kind of bleak and unvarnished sense.

niels_olson 5y ago

Soundgarden’s Black Hole Sun for those of a certain age: https://youtu.be/3mbBbFH9fAg https://youtu.be/3mbBbFH9fAg

WalterGR 5y ago
What’s the connection?
- tcbawo 5y ago
  From the article: "These pictures each contain an inky black disc of nothing. A black sun hangs with pendant menace and mystery. But they’re neither objects nor stains, rather punch holes made by Roy Stryker, director of the FSA’s documentary photograph program, and his team of editors. The holes marked pictures as unfit for purpose."

bongoman37 5y ago

simonebrunozzi 5y ago

> But they’re neither objects nor stains, rather punch holes made by Roy Stryker, director of the FSA’s documentary photograph program, and his team of editors. The holes marked pictures as unfit for purpose. Really interesting.

emrahcom 5y ago

https://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Roy-Stryker-FSA-black-hole-photos-5.jpg https://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Roy-Stryker-... Isn't that Walter White?

_qua 5y ago

So little obesity back then, it's noticable even from this small sampling.

antihero 5y ago
Food wasn't disgusting processed shit, and there was probably less of it. I wonder how life expectancy was, comparably, however?
- micromacrofoot 5y ago
  you don’t have to buy processed food, what people ate 100 years ago is still readily available life expectancy actually went up by about 6 years over the great depression (early 60s), and is generally better during recessions (though the suicide rate also goes up). Some speculation is that people work less and sleep more, have less money to spend on alcohol and other vices, and there are fewer workplace injuries
  - cheeseomlit 5y ago
    >what people ate 100 years ago is still readily available Is it? https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-and-nutrition-loss/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-an...
    - micromacrofoot 5y ago
      > “Vegetables are extraordinarily rich in nutrients and beneficial phytochemicals,” he reported. “They are still there, and vegetables and fruits are our best sources for these.” Regardless, it's somewhat avoidable by buying produce from local sources or from organic farms.
- gwbas1c 5y ago
  Much more human effort went into making food back then. Our food is much cheaper than in the past. (Assuming you live in the US and are middle-class.) You can eat heathy if you want to. It's your choice what you eat. You can choose to only buy unprocessed food and make everything from scratch. You can bring your own meals with you when you travel away from your home. The fact that we have fresh vegetables imported from thousands of miles away, and plenty of frozen (but otherwise minimally-processed) food means you can have a better diet than back then. It's all about your choices.

anovikov 5y ago

What was supposed to be scary in those pics?

idiocrat 5y ago

If you are interested in the atmosphere of those times, at least how it was seen through public media, there is a very interesting and informative docu movie called "Brother Can You Spare a Dime" from 1975, 1h 43m. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072742/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072742/ IMDB describes it as: "A nostalgic look back at the Great Depression with contemporary archival footage and film clips picturing James Cagney as an American Everyman."

xwdv 5y ago

Fucking idiot punching holes in photos so unnecessary, good thing we have machine learning to fill in the holes with what we could expect to see in their place.