Awkward Family Daguerrotypes

[Zsofia]

Okay, they're not daguerrotypes, but if you enjoy awkwardfamilyphotos.com I found the cutest set of awkward family photos from before 1930 (although I have my doubts about the time period on the Weekie Watchee mermaid.) Some of them are adorable, some of them I don't get why anybody would find them awkward, and too many of them have creepy-ass dolls and puppets.

Take a look.

Awkwardness aficianados will note early armshelf, props, and height lineup.

[Rick]

Number 5 is a player.

[elmwood]

#11 and #13 are so full of gay. When I use the term "gay", I don't mean the definition that the word had back in the era when those photos were taken.

#20 is kind of cute.

#3 is a neat photo, despite the "vagina as clown car" theme.

[Zsofia]

I want to give poor 8 a hug. (One assumes his name is Harry - much more awkward if it isn't, though.)

12, the women have this look on their faces, all "My god, I begged and pleaded and he STILL wore that goddamned coat."

[MOIDALIZE]

I think the women in 21 are hostages.

[Stealth Potato]

Hahah, check out the kitten in #2. Poor thing looks like it was lost and had despaired of ever seeing the light of day again!

[Kamino Neko]

Originally Posted by elmwood

#11 and #13 are so full of gay.

So's 25.

[Alessan]

Originally Posted by Tengu

So's 25.

Hell, so's 14.

[Shagnasty]

The guy in photo #1 wasn't actually there when the picture was taken. He is believed to be Theodore (Petey) Pally who was lynched in 1893. He was an axe murderer but also known as quite the prankster and shows up in lots of their family photos in goofy poses.

[panache45]

#5, right side: What's that kid doing with his hand?

#16: Is that a young Oscar Mayer?

[Kalhoun]

Originally Posted by MOIDALIZE

I think the women in 21 are hostages.

I get that feeling on nearly every photo of women from yesteryear. There were some exceptions in this collection, but they usually look like torture victims from some gulag. My sister in law has her husband's parents and grandparents, and both women look like they want to swallow a handful of cyanide.

[Manduck]

#4 - the tall woman on the right - doesn't she look like she hates her life? Cheer up, it can't be that bad!

[Harmonious Discord]

I wouldn't doubt the kid in 8 was from Wisconsin and a circus family.

Half the of pictures are not bad. I don't see pictures of people in bulky clothing as bad.

[Drain Bead]

I think #3 is actually kind of cute.

[Mindfield]

Whoa. It starts off rather mild and just rolls downhill from there, doesn't it?

1: Two more seconds of exposure and that would have been an action shot.

2: I HAS A BEARD

6: Creepy.

7: Left: Yo, Chunky G in tha house! Right: I'M A BOY, WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME?

8: Afterward, he spent a great deal of time on a couch talking to a bearded man about his mother.

9: (mother) I WILL EAT YOUR SOUL.

11: Sean Penn and Dennis Quaid: The Early Years.

15: Cat or kid: Which is creepier?

16: I don't know what that thing he's holding on to is, and I don't want to know.

17: Looks more 50s or 60s to me.

18: W. T. F.

20: Dog or girl: Which is OH GOD SHE'S COMING AFTER ME.

21: WAT.

22: LAWDY LAWDY LAWDY.

23: Shari Lewis and Lampchops' ancestors?

24: Sander Cohen?

[Zsofia]

Originally Posted by Stealth Potato

Hahah, check out the kitten in #2. Poor thing looks like it was lost and had despaired of ever seeing the light of day again!

I bet he lives in the beard and goes everywhere with his beard daddy. I think it's sweet.

Harmonious Discord - even the ones with the creepy dummies?

I think the reason it's funny is that I've spent too much time on Awkward Family Photos, and it's hilarious to see the exact same silly photo poses in family pictures from the turn of the century, is all.

[Mama Zappa]

Originally Posted by Alessan

Hell, so's 14.

Yeah. And 14 looks like the southern point of that moon is.... not where the sun shines!

[Idlewild]

Originally Posted by Kalhoun

I get that feeling on nearly every photo of women from yesteryear. There were some exceptions in this collection, but they usually look like torture victims from some gulag. My sister in law has her husband's parents and grandparents, and both women look like they want to swallow a handful of cyanide.

I actually have a photo I love of my great-great-grandmother. The expression on her face (even clearer on the physical picture, that scan isn't great) is just full of mischief.

[Serenata67]

What's with all the creepy dolls? There are TONS of them!

[Boyo Jim]

I think #11 might be among the earliest work of Robert Maplethorp.

[SMullen]

The "women" in 21 are men in drag. Frat boys or something. My 2 cents' worth.

[elfkin477]

So...is 16 a boy or a girl? It looks like a boy...wearing a pleated skirt.

[Silver Tyger]

Originally Posted by elfkin477

So...is 16 a boy or a girl? It looks like a boy...wearing a pleated skirt.

I don't know when it stopped, but it didn't used to be unusual for young boys and girls to be dressed alike in skirts. 15 is in a skirt too and there's no way that's a girl. I hope.

I'm pretty sure the thing in 16 is a balloon. A very wrongly shaped balloon.

[Shirley Ujest]

Originally Posted by Manduck

#4 - the tall woman on the right - doesn't she look like she hates her life? Cheer up, it can't be that bad!

I think that she is a man. Look how mannish and tall s/he is.

[Boyo Jim]

Originally Posted by Shirley Ujest

I think that she is a man. Look how mannish and tall s/he is.

Look at the legs on him or her. The right leg looks kinda like a storks leg- like the knee bends backward instead of forward. Just looks very odd to me.

And a lot of stockings getting baggy at the knees in that pic.

[elfkin477]

Originally Posted by Silver Tyger Girl

I don't know when it stopped, but it didn't used to be unusual for young boys and girls to be dressed alike in skirts. 15 is in a skirt too and there's no way that's a girl. I hope.

15 is probably a boy, and they did put young boys in dresses/skirts, but only when they were wee little things like the child in 15. School-aged boys wouldn't be in skirts or dresses as old as the kid in 16.

[flodnak]

The only thing that looks boyish about the child in #16 is the haircut. The child's face is still very androgynous, and the clothes are definitely a girl's clothes - a boy of that age would be in short pants or something similar. My guess is that the child is a girl. Sometimes a child's hair would be cut very short or even shaved off as part of treating an illness (it was thought to help reduce fever), so maybe she was very ill at some point and her hair just hasn't grown any longer yet.

The child in #15 is very likely to be a boy, however. The idea that babies and toddlers must be dressed in gender-appropriate clothes is relatively new. Clothes were expensive, so it was better if all the children in a family could use the same baby and toddler clothes; skirts were easier as long as there were diapers, potty training, and short bladder warning fuses to deal with.

I've seen #3 before and it still makes me smile. That line-up-by-size pose is probably as old as photography itself, and this family managed it better than most.

[Spectre of Pithecanthropus]

Originally Posted by Silver Tyger Girl

I don't know when it stopped, but it didn't used to be unusual for young boys and girls to be dressed alike in skirts.

Only for very young boys. When they were old enough to go outside on their own (in those far off days long before helicopter parenting), they'd start wearing knickers, or maybe shorts at first. I'm not sure when it stopped, but it was sometime early in the 20th century.

[LSLGuy]

Is the creature in #9 a dog, or a monkey, or a dog-monkey hybrid? The face is tres weird.

[Miss Woodhouse]

#6 is a recreation of a famous guardian angel painting. Not a very good rendition of a not very good painting, but that's where the weird idea came from.

The photographers great granddaughter is now a mom with a camera taking pictures of babies in over sized baskets with giant flowers on their heads, I just know it.