It's not like Collier just knocked on a random door and interrupted the family dinner. All of these photos had to have been arranged in advance, so naturally the family dressed in their "Sunday best" attire. Same thing with the cleaning - if you knew that a government photographer was coming to your house to make a permanent record you'd probably make sure it was spotless too.

Everyone seems uptight and uncomfortable. I grew up in a coal mining town neckties and white shirts at dinner were really rare. Even during the June Cleaver Leave it to Beaver era.

That young man has got an ornery look to him, I bet he pestered the nerves smooth out of his sister.

My grandmother would have told the daughter to sit up straight.

There are thousands? millions? a whole lot of pictures just like this, floating around the internet, hidden in projector carousels, sometimes (even) on public display in people's homes, that try and convince us there once was a time when people put on ties -- and coats and sometimes even suits -- to eat at their own kitchen or dining room table; but of course few are fooled: most of us know that, one-by-one, little elves have gone in and replaced the real pictures with these clever fakes.

The son looks like either a movie villain of the era (think Zachary Scott in Mildred Pierce) or a young Thomas Dewey.

Son has a bit of narcissist vibe, while the daughter is one down-to-earth next-door beauty inside and out.

Was this the mealtime ritual? Was it to reflect the status of Mr. Platnik's OCD government job? Or just to have their group portrait taken?

I recall John Vachon's 1940 photo of six construction workers in the parlor of Mrs. Pritchard's boarding house in Radford, Virginia: there you have everything from a suit and tie to a sweatshirt to overalls--but all meticulously neat and clean.

Things are not the same today. (Even OCD is different.)