Freeze Face

When I was growing up mothers used to caution their children that if they kept making ugly faces their faces would freeze with that look on it for the rest of their life. It doesn't seem like any of us kids took the threat too seriously as it never stopped the activity for long. Did you ever wonder where mothers got this idea? In the early days of the automobile (1900s) driving was man's work and doctors cautioned that women at speeds of 15-20 miles an hour would experience acute mental suffering,nervous excitement and circulatory disturbances. It was also a worry that women riding in open air cars would suffer automobile face, a hypothetical condition in which the wind would blow women's mouths into permanent gapes.
Needless to say these theories weren't popular with women and were cutting the auto sales market in half. The car company Maxwell solved the dilemma by getting a 22 year old woman and 3 companions to drive from Manhattan to San Francisco. The rest as they say,is history.