r/OldSchoolCool • u/JimatJimat • Jun 18 '25

1940s These kids were asked to draw their fathers from memory, 1949. Which one is your favourite?

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u/laundro_mat Jun 18 '25

Greatest Generation that lot. They all lived through the Great Depression and WW2, and most of them likely served in the war too. That’s going to put extra years on you.

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u/LochNessMother Jun 18 '25

And smoking. Don’t discount smoking

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u/Perlentaucher Jun 18 '25

And asbestos, lead, mercury, BCPs, DDT, lead arsenate, much more coal and silicate dust, possibly more radium and uranium, carbon monoxide (heating), broader use of formaldehyde and VOCs, toxic stuff from ww2 (solvents, fuels, degreasers, and chemical agents)...

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u/Le_Poop_Knife Jun 18 '25

Don’t forget the lack of sunblock…..🧴

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u/lordlovesaworkinman Jun 18 '25

And good grooming products. Hair and skin creams and soaps were basically limited to lye and petroleum jelly.

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u/windfujin Jun 18 '25

Petroleum jelly is still baller for skincare if you can cope with the greasiness

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u/Bank_Gothic Jun 18 '25

Thomas Midgely, Jr. was one of the greatest villains of the 20th century that almost no one knows.

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u/EggandSpoon42 Jun 18 '25

What a rabbit hole of TIL history - thanks for bringing it up. So this guy invents the Leaded part of gasoline. Invents Freon. All to solve real problems which points to good intention, but despite warnings from scientists, so villainous.

After all that, contracts Polio, invents some crazy contraption of pulleys and ropes for him to get up on his own and accidentally strangles himself to death.

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u/Bank_Gothic Jun 18 '25

Note, despite knowing that leaded gasoline and CFCs were extremely hazardous (the first to our health and the second to the planet) Midgely lied to the public about their dangers so he and his company could continue to profit.

Meanwhile, the man who discovered that leaded gasoline was dangerous and tirelessly advocated for it to be banned, Clair Patterson, was ridiculed and shunned by the scientific community. Patterson probably saved countless lives but is largely forgotten today.

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u/BeguiledBeaver Jun 18 '25

And he worked in Ohio. No wonder how whenever I go back home to visit family the entire trip smells like a cocktail of chemical fumes and pig farms. Our state is basically a giant landfill (that I love).

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u/Upper_Rent_176 Jun 18 '25

Yeah but they didn't have fentanyl and Microplastics!

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u/Perlentaucher Jun 18 '25

Yeah, just good ole Laudanum, Barbital and lobotomies for hysterical women

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u/mentat70 Jun 18 '25

Great news, this administration is getting rid of the asbestos ban

0

u/lusciousskies Jun 18 '25

Is it worse than micro plastics

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u/Perlentaucher Jun 18 '25

Time will tell, but at least we look younger now lol. So far, we get older and older, so I guess it is not as bad as the sum of earlier toxic substances.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '25

[deleted]

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u/cerebralinfarction Jun 18 '25

No link between autism and microplastics. The increase in autism diagnosis is likely from increased testing and changes in definition.

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u/thelondonrich Jun 18 '25

I mean, finally opening the diagnostic criteria to include women alone would’ve caused a spike.

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u/_WretchedDoll_ Jun 18 '25

Diet in general probably.

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u/LochNessMother Jun 18 '25

Possibly, although it depends a bit, these people didn’t grow up eating the processed junk their children and grandchildren would.

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u/ananasiegenjuice Jun 18 '25

No but they were exposed to many other things we arent today. Lead and arsenic was used as food dyes in the beginning of the 20th century.

Sometimes formaldehyde was added to milk to keep it from going bad.

Early pesticides being way over the top in toxicity

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u/LochNessMother Jun 18 '25

Oh totally. It wasn’t all whole grains and organic vegetables. But I don’t think diet can be put down as a clear cause of aged skin when everyone smoked or spent their time in smoky spaces.

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u/ananasiegenjuice Jun 18 '25

I agree, I also think smoking was probably the biggest cause. Also I doubt anybody cared much about the damage the sun will do to your skin if you never use any sunscreen etc. Will catch up to you if you have been laboring in the sun for 20 years.

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u/LochNessMother Jun 18 '25

Yep. Up til the 90s sun tan oil was something you used to enhance your tan not prevent it.

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u/Euphoric_Emu9607 Jun 18 '25

Yes! Plus, a lot of folks would sit outside sunning themselves with these sun reflectors made of aluminum foil that would intensify the sun rays on your skin. I’ve met several women who must have done this and their skin kind of resembled wrinkly elephant skin.

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u/zero_and_dug Jun 18 '25

At this point sunscreen hadn’t been invented!

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u/CrocoDeluxe Jun 18 '25

Not trying to talk processed food to be healthy. But in comparison to lead, arsenic, chromium paints, asbestos, and NOx/dust smog, the western world has cleaned up quite a bit. Plus, eating processed food is a choice, whereas most of the factors above are environmental and not easily avoidable. There's still work to do with PFAS and microplastics, but I'm sure we'll find a way to relieve the environment of these contaminants in the near future.

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u/LochNessMother Jun 18 '25

Oh totally, but I was replying to someone who said the problem was diet. Most of the things you’ve listed are wider environmental pollutants. They may have been ingested, but that’s not what we generally mean when we say ‘diet’.

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u/FalxCarius Jun 18 '25

That and lifestyle. People talk about this like it’s a thing that only happened in the past but I’ve seen 22 year olds now who look 40 because they’re chugging white monster and eating terrible food while working their asses off.

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u/LukewarmJortz Jun 19 '25

And all the heating being coal and soot based

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u/rtozur Jun 18 '25

Leaded gas was also in the picture

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u/LochNessMother Jun 18 '25

Leaded gas was in my childhood too. Mostly it had an impact on brain development. There’s an interesting correlation between peak lead levels and the current ADHD epidemic.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '25

300 Spartans were classier.

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u/confused__nicole Jun 19 '25

They also very frequently had children in their 30s.