Amsden Klinghard ’29
Staff Writer
Many Holy Cross students have come across the supposed “fun fact” that the smiley face was invented in the college’s home city of Worcester. Despite the widespread knowledge of this piece of trivia, few students actually understand the implications of this groundbreaking discovery due to rampant historical ignorance. The Harvey Ball story desperately needs to be reanalyzed – he was not just the artist behind the well-known drawing, but the inventor of the smile itself.
Early photographs provide irrefutable evidence that everyone was miserable during the pre-Ball days. Modern viewers of portraits from this time will notice the blank facial expressions that were universal in the primitive years before the smile was invented. Mouth movement was not recognized as a source of emotional expression, and the “straight face” ruled supreme. Some fringe smile scholars believe renaissance artist and Ninja Turtle Leonardo Da Vinci developed a proto-smile which can be seen in The Mona Lisa – however, most agree that this was too far ahead of his time.
Worcester resident Harvey Ball was reportedly an exceptionally fortunate child, being the only of 23 siblings to survive a vicious dinosaur attack. Walking uphill both ways to his one-room schoolhouse, he was to pursue a bright future as a typewriter repair man. His life was forever changed, however, when President Gandhi enacted the draft, and he was sent to fight on the front lines during the War of 1812. The years of brutal war took its toll on Ball, and when it was time for him to return to civilian life, he fell into a deep depression.
Confining himself to his room for weeks on end, Ball was spiraling. Unemployed and alone, he needed something to turn his life around. Hoping to recapture the carefree days of his youth, he ruthlessly experimented on himself. His scientific diary reveals that he attempted increasingly dangerous experiments to cure his depression, including sending electrical currents though his brain and allowing himself to be bitten by a radioactive spider.
Ball was at the end of his rope when he first began experimenting with facial contortion. His first attempt involved scrunching his eyebrows and blinking three times, but this did not yield any meaningful results. In 1963, however, the inventor had his eureka moment. He found that raising the corners of his mouth via a pulley-based contraption gave his face a cheerful appearance. Suddenly aware of the significance of his discovery, he jumped to grab the nearest sheet of bright yellow paper, and scrawled a basic image of his new facial expression as happiness swelled inside of him.
Skipping down the street with his innovation on display, his neighbors reacted viscerally to the sight of his face. Many were shocked, while others were simply overcome with an irresistible joy. Soon, a growing crowd began to follow him, drawn to his bubbly grin. Clutching his yellow banner above his head, Ball triumphantly proclaimed his invention of the smile. The dark ages were over!
A visionary who always believed in a better way, Ball’s years of painstaking research elegantly solved a problem that had been plaguing humanity for thousands of years.
Ball was soon elected to the office of Mayor, and ruled Worcester with an iron fist. His first decree made smiling mandatory – violators of this rule were given lengthy dungeon sentences. The excesses of the Ball mayoral term gave rise to a reactionary “frowning” movement which continues to this day.
Eventually, the smile spread internationally, where it was universally adopted by all countries (although there are rumors of remote villages that remain smile-free). Sensing an opportunity to poke people’s gums with sharp metal hooks, an entire industry of dentists sprang up to care for newly visible teeth. Harvey Ball will go down in history as a part of the pantheon of great inventors, such as Albert Einstein, the inventor of the Rubik’s cube, and Woodrow Wilson, the inventor of the volleyball.
Over the years, history has been obscured so that many have come to believe in a fictitious pre-Ball smile. It’s the duty of historians to preserve the facts and dispel this egregious misconception. The next time you flash a grin, remember the complex origins of the smile, rooted in our own city of Worcester!
Featured image courtesy of CNN
Copy Edited by Sophia Mariani ’26
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