“The sedate citizens [sic] can’t indulge in any hilariousness without incurring the risk of being caught in the act, and having his photograph passed around … ”

A modern warning?

Hardly.  This problem has apparently been around since the start of snapshot camera technology.

Now back when people started doing photography in the mid-1800s, using a camera required lugging a huge heavy box and a bunch of glass plates in order to take a photo. You needed to know a fair bit about chemistry as well, as the chemicals needed to be properly mixed and carefully applied to the glass plate before you exposed the image. Running around taking candid shots with that equipment just wasn’t practical, let along feasible.

But then in 1888 the Kodak camera came along and the snapshot revolution was on. The Kodak camera was  lighter-weight, self-contained, and easy to use. All you needed to know was how to press a button; indeed, the slogan went, “You press the button, we do the rest.” The Kodak camera was pre-loaded with film; when you finished the roll, you sent the whole thing into the company and they sent back the prints and a new roll of film in the camera.

Suddenly, taking a spontaneous photo to record a moment of your life, or taking a candid photo of others, was possible. Lots of people starting doing it  — including, apparently, enough of them in Hartford in 1888 to prompt this warning in the paper, repeated in an issues of the Indianpolis Journal:

From the Indianapolis Journal, August 5, 1888 (click to read the whole page of the paper)

Think of what the writer would make of today’s small cell phones with cameras  – so small, you can conceal it in the palm of your hand. No cigar box or prize package required.

Beware.