This is kind of a fanciful question I guess, and I’m not sure exactly how to phrase it without any really specific parameters, so please bear with me.
If you were somehow magically, instantaneously (and inexplicably) transported back in time, how far back would you have to go to be considered (by those in your midst) either as slightly odd, or kinda’ strange, or really weird, or downright scary?
If you could very soon dress like they do and generally try to “be like them”, would you still stand out in a crowd, if not culturally than at least physically?
For comparison, you’d have to be in your home area (or if you’ve gone back really far, before your present home area existed) then perhaps to one of the areas you consider to be your culture or ancestral homeland.)
Would they notice your “strange accent” and your mannerisms? Would they notice that you “smell different” or are “too clean” or “too dirty”? Or would there be just some “undefinable something” about you that would be hard to explain?
I don’t think it would be very long if your are older than about 25. I would say you would start to stick out by the turn of the 20th century in most places. The reason would be general state of health, teeth, haircut, and a more flabby, less muscular build and fewer injuries and debilitation from disease.
The Flynn effect dictates that even people of average intelligence now would stand out as pure geniuses then and knowledge of all kinds of then unknown things would creep out even if you were careful.
None of that was unknown then of course. However, I think a person with good teeth, taller than average, soft build, no smallpox scars or limps from injury or disease, and knowledge of arcane things would draw some attention even in 1900 America.
To quote myself “For comparison, you’d have to be in your home area (or if you’ve gone back really far, before your present home area existed) then perhaps to one of the areas you consider to be your culture or ancestral homeland.)” Are you a person of Japanese ancestry, and are you a foreigner in today’s Japan rather than a foreigner who has been transported back in time?
People start to look “off” once you go back past 1920 or so. Check out these sample photos from the late 1800’s - early 1900’s.
I don’t know what it is but I have never seen a picture of an attractive woman in pre-1900 America. I don’t mean the dress or anything like that. They all look retarded, diseased, or just plain horse-faced.
As far as height goes unless you are on the short side you would probbaly stand out in a crowd as little as 60 or 70 years ago. Not in the sense of being a sideshow freak, but in the way that we think of people who are 6’6" today. Far form non-descript or average. Certainly by 100 years ago most modern people would be tall enough to attract comment.
Aside from height it really depends a lot on where you go and what you want to do. Life in the middle classes in a city would be harder than life as a farm labourer for example.
You’d probably only need to go back at least 150 years to start attracting attention due to language. We still have plenty of people alive from 85 years ago so we can say that things haven’t changed much in that time as far as manners, patterns of speech and so forth. Prior to the 1930s and the rise of talking pictures regionalisms were much more pronounced, so it was much harder to stand out. If you were dropped in the nearest large town or city up to 150 years ago you would at worst be considered a rustic. Your speech patterns and accent might seem odd to the locals, but no odder than the speech patterns of most regionals.
The real challenge would be manners and social expectations. Anything beyond 100 years things would start becoming increasingly difficult. Manners, customs and modes of thought start to become increasingly alien. It would be very easy to make multiple gaffs in a single day conducting normal business. Without a lot of coaching it would be very hard to maintain your ‘proper place’ and refrain being overly familiar with your betters or inferiors.
I doubt that the average person from today could possibly manage a normal day’s activity in a city of 100 years ago without some serious gaffes. Imagine if today you met a man who regularly referred to the proper place of niggers or pinched the bottoms of attractive women as a matter of course or used flying to the moon as standard of impossibility. They may not actually be arrested or beaten up, but you would certainly look at them as being extremely ignorant, odd and socially maladjusted. Anyone from today dropped back 150 years ago would be unable to avoid doing exactly the same sorts of things, and they would be viewed exactly the same way. You would certainly stand out even with your best efforts to blend in.
This is one of those things that always irks me about time-travel stories. The problem of blending in isn’t trying to adapt to the technology or even the language. The problem is that the past really is a different country, and they really do things differently there. I could no more hope to blend in seamlessly to Victorian London than I could hope to blend in to modern day Tokyo. The cultural differences are simply too great to pick up without years of exposure.
Not really. The Flynn effect doesn’t dictate people are actually becoming geniuses, more that people are getting better at doing some sections IQ tests. Sure we have an increased ability for abstract problem solving on paper, but whether this translates to reality is debatable at best. It’s more likely that you would be viewed as useless or at perhaps an idiot savant rather than a genius. You can produce some really abstruse reasoning and your education probably means you know a lot of ‘stuff’ but you can’t even saddle a horse and you don’t even know when the pump handle needs greasing.
The Flynn effect is interesting but I don’t know of anybody who suggests that people of today are actually higher functioning than any other generation. The fact that academic performance for example has failed to increase over the generations suggests that the practical upshot of our increase in clever reasoning is at best limited and possibly detrimental.
This is one of those things that could only be established with any reliability by a blind test. You would need to photograph a random sample of modern women and dress them and do their makeup (or lack thereof) in the style of the day and pose them, get them to use the same expression and so forth. Then you’d need to mix them with some period photographs and see if people could guess the genuine items with any accuracy. I’m betting they couldn’t.
One of the big problems is that we are comparing apples and oranges. Photographs then weren’t very good. Contrast for example was limited so features tended to blur out. Consider this random example from the 1880s. Both women appear to have mumps because the contrast that normally highlights the cheekbones and jawline has been washed out. That may be why you think that these women are horse faced.
The other problem is that women today are simply so much better groomed. There are so many products and professionals and they get so much practice that most modern women are competent beauticians by the age of 18. Then you add in the fact that everybody today knows how to pose for a photograph, whereas prior to the 1920s it was treated as a portrait sitting. Then you factor in that bad photographs today are destroyed because photography is so cheap and easily reproduced. Back them there was no such thing as bad photograph and no chance of re-sitting because it made you look bad.
Try looking through a collection of random snapshots of modern women and see how many of them are unflattering because the people weren’t able to pose. That’s the type of thing you’d expect when people didn’t know how to pose.
Admittedly, “actresses” and “real women” aren’t the same thing, but I hardly think Lillian Russell or Maude Adams were “retarded, diseased, or just plain horse-faced” (at least one of those certainly describes me, though!).
Ok, I would do Maude so there is at least one I could look up once I get to 1900. Lillian still has that antique face look though although she is better than the great majority. Women seem to get a lot better looking about 1920 and that crop was produced right at the turn of the century.
Janet Richards in Shagnasty’s pictures is not unattractive.
This matter was addressed in a minor way in the Somewhere in Time potboiler starrring Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour. It degenerated into an impossible love story, but when he travels back in time, he bumbles a bit with customs and clothing. I was particularly interested in that aspect, but it was dropped in favor of the romance.
I have a great uncle who was devestatingly handsome. I was floored that he looked so terrific in those old line-em-up-and-shoot-em pictures. My great grandmother was exceedingly plain, and it was very obvious in the same-era photos!
Do you have dropsy? The grippe? Scrofula? The vapors? Jungle rot? Dandy fever? Poor man’s gout? Housemaid’s knee? Climatic boo bow? The staggers? Dum dum fever?
Ooh! Put some Lister’s Carbolic Unguent on a wad of cotton, put the cotton it in your ear. That’ll stop them shakes
Not really. Unless you’re in the NBA, most people would be well within normal limits of the time. People were not that much shorter in the past – they just built their doors and ceilings lower for practical reasons.
I think a lot of what makes old pictures of women look bad is their teeth - they don’t smile, because you didn’t smile in pictures, and they often had bad teeth anyway. Nobody had orthodontics or anything. If I hadn’t had braces, I’d look like I had a receding chin and be exceedingly bucktoothed, but I was born in a time and place where the technology to fix my teeth was readily available. Plus, I don’t have any smallpox scars and I get enough to eat in a balanced diet with all the essential vitamins and minerals. People in the past would look at me and say “I wonder why that girl with the nice teeth had to chop all her hair off!”
I am always impressed with the costume and makeup and casting people who make the Deadwood cast look like believably historical people. Even the women don’t stand out as modern-looking.
I agree. This is why I’d head to a smaller city, away from the coast, and then put on a phony accent and claim to be from Siberia. Any flaw in my manners, ettiquette, or general conduct could be explained away by this.
