Ever look at a high school yearbook from the 1950's or so, and it seems like the students

[raccoon]

look so OLD in those photos? I mean, instead of 16 they look about 10 years older?


Or is it just me?

[ret5hd]

1. dorian gray?

[Metatron]

2. I always think the same thing.

I can't figure why, though.

[hunter]

3. Smoking (them or their parents) no sunscreen, air pollution...

I can come up with a couple of guesses.

My first guess it's hairstyles and such. Since I was a kid in the sixties, I'd associate fifties styles with OLD.

[dana_b]

4. their style seems conservative

by today's standards and I think that's what makes them seem older to me.

[raccoon]

6. By george, I think you've got it! nt

[RebelOne]

5. It is just you. I was in high school during the '50s

and I certainly did not look old. In fact, I looked younger than my age.

[marzipanni]

7. I just looked at some '1950s yearbook pages' by googling

to reconfirm my thought that, in the case of the girls, it's their short, styled/permed hairdos, and sometimes dark lipstick, that look kind of older-lady like. Most of their faces look young.

[Joe Shlabotnik]

8. Silly, its because they're really all actors in their twenties.

[doc03]

9. I don't know I see high school kids today and the girls sure seem

to look more mature (if you know what I mean) today then back in the day.

[Populist_Prole]

10. Wow, I thought I was the only one. My thoughts exactly

Looking at my parent's yearbooks ( they both graduated in the late 50's ) and seeing how the guys looked like dorks and the girls looked like prudish matrons I often wondered how they ever got together and bore my generation.

All kidding aside though, I believe the the staid conservatism of the day accounts for their "older" look.

[elleng]

11. About to dust off my '62 yearbook; will let you know.

Will see how we looked then, compared to now: 50th reunion in September!

[Art_from_Ark]

12. The big thing was "maturity"

Photographers and students alike were aiming for the "mature look", because, after all, high school graduates were no longer kids.

[HughBeaumont]

13. Oh, my dad's yearbook is proof positive of this.

They all, every last one of them, looked like they were at least 25-30 years old. Their hair probably had something to do with it, but it wasn't just the hair, it was their faces too.

I say a lot of it had to do with the rigid environment they were raised in. 50s-70s dads were "disciplinarians" (today, we would call them abusers) and controlled the boys and girls with an iron fist (which probably led to so much 60s rebellion). There were far more blue collar jobs back then, and other jobs you could get earlier. College was optional, not a requirement, because there was always the "plant" or the factory to go to. They just grew up faster than we did.

I noticed in the 80s, kids started to look more their age . . . maybe about 6 out of 100 looked older, but not many.

[raccoon]

14. Some real good responses to this thread. Thanks a lot. nt

[CBGLuthier]

15. More incidences of malnutrition back then.

Now we have gone from some being undernourished to most being overnourished.

[retread]

16. Posed photos conforming to strict guidelines. Then there was this.

[pipi_k]

17. Nah, I don't think it's

just you.

They do look old to me, too.

Also...I look back at some of the photos from when I was a kid, and I remember how some of my elder relatives looked back then.

I have a photo of me, about 15 months old, being held by my Meme'. She is 41 years old in 1953 (13 years older than my dad because she is his stepmom).

She looks 10...15 years older than that. In fact, looks way older than I do in 2002 when, at the age of 50, I am holding my own granddaughter.

anyway, I graduated HS in 1970. When I look at my yearbook, I see kids.

[rrneck]

18. That was pre cult of youth. nt

[bigwillq]

19. Hairstyle, B&W instead of color

Fashion.

I agree that some look old by looking through my parents'. I think some of the examples I listed could be a reason why.