# Was A. Lincoln Ever Photographed Smiling? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 21, 2005, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-a-lincoln-ever-photographed-smiling/336561 "2005-12-21T01:55:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sir\_Rhosis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@Sir\_Rhosis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_Rhosis)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2005, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-a-lincoln-ever-photographed-smiling/336561/1 "2005-12-21T01:55:33Z")
We usually see only about five or six iconic photos of the 16th President. The first dugerrotype, the prebeard “long-faced” shot, the photo of him reading to his children, the “penny” and “five-dollar bill” photos, and the one taken just before his death, which showed him emaciated and worn-down. I’ve seen a few more photos than these, but to the average person, one or two of these images are all they’ve seen. By the 1860s, one didn’t have to be locked in a stock with a frozen expression for fifteen minutes (or however long it was) to produce a photographic likeness. So, is there a photo of a smiling Abe? Or one doctored to show what he would have looked like smiling? Thanks in advance. Sir Rhosis ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2005, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-a-lincoln-ever-photographed-smiling/336561/2 "2005-12-21T02:14:04Z")
These are the closest I know of to “smiling Lincoln” photos, though it’s debatable whether you’d actually call them smiles. [http://www.whitehousehistory.org/06/subs/images\_subs/c\_04.jpg](http://www.whitehousehistory.org/06/subs/images_subs/c_04.jpg) [http://weblog.theviewfromthecore.com/TheBlogFromTheCore20031119a.jpg](http://weblog.theviewfromthecore.com/TheBlogFromTheCore20031119a.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2005, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-a-lincoln-ever-photographed-smiling/336561/3 "2005-12-21T02:15:27Z")
Actually, it wasn’t until almost the 20th Century that one didn’t have the hideously long exposure times to deal with, IIRC. (I think that’s one of the reasons why most of Matthew Brady’s photos are of dead people.) Certainly smiles in photographs are pretty rare before the XXth century. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2005, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-a-lincoln-ever-photographed-smiling/336561/4 "2005-12-21T02:19:57Z")
I don’t think anyone smiled in photos back then. They all look like dour grey miserable people as they fearfully wait for the flash to finally go off. Or whatever it was they were doing. ---
**Author:** ![Moirai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/96bed5/32.png) [@Moirai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moirai)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2005, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-a-lincoln-ever-photographed-smiling/336561/5 "2005-12-21T02:19:33Z")
IIRC, it wasn’t considered proper to smile broadly in a picture. You were supposed to look serious. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2005, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-a-lincoln-ever-photographed-smiling/336561/6 "2005-12-21T02:28:34Z")
It was a combination of style and the difficulty of keeping a smile during long exposure timee. If you smiled, the odds were you wouldn’t be able to keep it going the entire time, and any movement would blur things. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2005, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-a-lincoln-ever-photographed-smiling/336561/7 "2005-12-21T02:31:31Z")
It’s portraiture. How many oil paintings of broadly grinning subjects have you ever seen? “Smile for the camera” is a later concept. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2005, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-a-lincoln-ever-photographed-smiling/336561/8 "2005-12-21T02:33:37Z")
I don’t think anyone smiled in photos back then. They all look like dour grey miserable people as they fearfully wait for the flash to finally go off. Or whatever it was they were doing. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2005, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-a-lincoln-ever-photographed-smiling/336561/9 "2005-12-21T02:37:02Z")
Ah, an 1860s-style dour flash. ---
**Author:** ![Casey1505](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dc4da7/32.png) [@Casey1505](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Casey1505)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2005, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-a-lincoln-ever-photographed-smiling/336561/10 "2005-12-21T02:42:14Z")
[“Mr President, Fort Sumter was attacked!”](http://www.usiap.org/Legacy/Pictures/Presidents/lincoln.jpg) [“Mr President, Lee surrendered!”](http://www.usiap.org/Legacy/Pictures/Presidents/lincoln.jpg) [“Mr President, the First Lady was the 10th caller and won theater tickets!”](http://www.usiap.org/Legacy/Pictures/Presidents/lincoln.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2005, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-a-lincoln-ever-photographed-smiling/336561/11 "2005-12-21T02:49:21Z")
The Alexander Gardner photograph, for years believed to be the last one taken on a living Lincoln, shows him grinning at least. [Link.](http://members.aol.com/RVSNorton1/Lincoln71.html) ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2005, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-a-lincoln-ever-photographed-smiling/336561/12 "2005-12-21T02:54:42Z")
> [@Mr. Moto](#): > > The Alexander Gardner photograph, for years believed to be the last one taken on a living Lincoln, shows him grinning at least. > > [Link.](http://members.aol.com/RVSNorton1/Lincoln71.html) I’d call that more of a “Mona Lisa smile” than a grin. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2005, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-a-lincoln-ever-photographed-smiling/336561/13 "2005-12-21T03:18:06Z")
Lincoln was one WEIRD-looking mo-fo, I gotta say. He’s so iconic now that he just looks like Lincoln. But try to evaluate him tabula rasa, and, YOWZA! ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2005, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-a-lincoln-ever-photographed-smiling/336561/14 "2005-12-21T04:04:41Z")
Marfan’s syndrome, wasn’t it? Personally, I’d like to see a return to the “no smiling” custom. Most of the time people’s smiles look fake in pictures. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2005, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-a-lincoln-ever-photographed-smiling/336561/15 "2005-12-21T04:10:34Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Marfan’s syndrome, wasn’t it? IIRC, that’s never been proven. I think that there was an attempt to run some tests to find out for sure, but that was blocked by either the family or the government. ---
**Author:** ![Santos\_L\_Halper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/santos_l_halper/32/1_2.png) [@Santos\_L\_Halper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Santos_L_Halper)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2005, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-a-lincoln-ever-photographed-smiling/336561/16 "2005-12-21T04:40:10Z")
He’s kinda smiling in [this picture](http://www.railsplitter.com/sale10/images/1037.jpg). ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2005, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-a-lincoln-ever-photographed-smiling/336561/17 "2005-12-21T04:41:51Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > I don’t think anyone smiled in photos back then. They all look like dour grey miserable people as they fearfully wait for the flash to finally go off. Or whatever it was they were doing. The long exposure time was the main reason for this. Most people can’t smile for more than a couple of seconds before it starts to look like a fake Miss America smile. Plus, any movement would blur the photograph. Consequently, people usually adopted a plain, neutral expression that didn’t require any effort to mantain. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2005, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-a-lincoln-ever-photographed-smiling/336561/18 "2005-12-21T06:47:51Z")
May I dispell the idea of the “hideously long exposure time”? From the [Library of Congress](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/newreply.php): > [@](#): > > Exposure times for the earliest daguerreotypes [introduced in 1839] ranged from three to fifteen minutes, making the process nearly impractical for portraiture. Modifications to the sensitization process coupled with the improvement of photographic lenses soon reduced the exposure time to less than a minute. With the introduction of [collodion processes](http://www.rleggat.com/photohistory/history/collodio.htm) (a.k.a. “wet plate” photographs) in 1851, years before Lincoln became president, the exposure time was reduced to as little as two or three seconds. Collodion was used for [ambrotypes](http://www.civilwar.si.edu/lincoln_bythomson.html) (on glass) or tintypes (on iron). Most of [Matthew Brady](http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/whi/fullRecord.asp?id=23659)’s portraits of Lincoln were ambrotypes, not daguerreotypes. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2005, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-a-lincoln-ever-photographed-smiling/336561/19 "2005-12-21T07:14:23Z")
[Lincoln funeral procession](http://rs6.loc.gov/pnp/cwp/4a39000/4a39600/4a39661r.jpg) (1865) is an example of how relatively speedy the exposure time for photographs had become with collodian processes. ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2005, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-a-lincoln-ever-photographed-smiling/336561/20 "2005-12-21T08:30:28Z")
He’s smiling in that picture, too.