Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
Young photographer Lorrain Dykes took many photos in the late 1930s and eventually donated her album to the Eddy County Museum.
Lorrain captured a candid shot of this gentlemen when she and her friends paid a visit to his fromt porch.
Of all Lorrain's subjects, her radiant friend Norma Swenson is the most frequent.
Many of Lorrain's peers joined the military or trained in nursing after high school. World War II was well underway in Europe, yet these young people of Eddy County had great smiles to carry them through. Photo process date is October 22, 1942.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the lack of smiles in photographs from the earliest parts of the 20th century. It turns out the smiles that we expect in photos didn't come into fashion until the late 1930s.
While much of this had to do with changing cultural norms and improved dentistry, there is one theory about photogenic smiles that makes perfect sense.
People could buy a box camera from the drugstore for a dollar. Soon everyday folks were taking snapshots of the people in their lives, effectively capturing smile-filled moments.
We see evidence of this in the photo collections at the Eddy County Museum. A photo album belonging to Lorrain Dykes documents teenage subculture of the late 1930s, and there is no shortage of smiles.
High school had become a social experience rather than a privilege, and soon teens were spending free time riding in cars, going to movies, enjoying ice cream and dancing to music- all in the company of the opposite sex. Oh my.
Another development in American culture was detailed by James Truslow Adams in his 1931 book "Epic of America." He called it the American Dream and said, "That dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement."
I imagine it was an idea that appealed to a generation that was born and raised during the depression, only to graduate at the heels of another world war.
Lorrain's album might be a lot like other teenage photo collections. It's full of school photos and cute notations. But now it allows us to look back and see that despite the challenges, folks still found a reason to smile.
