Category:
1920s

Pigeon-Killing Death Ray

Dr. Antonio Longoria claimed that he had invented a death-ray. In tests it demonstrated the ability to kill pigeons at a distance of four miles. However, he destroyed his machine and vowed never to build another, insisting that he was “interested now only in doing something to help civilization.”

Spokane Chronicle - Oct 11, 1939



Tampa Tribune - Oct 13, 1939



Popular Science - Feb 1940

Posted By: Alex - Fri Mar 06, 2020 - Comments (0)
Category: 1920s, 1930s, Weapons

The Most Useful Mayonnaise

How useful is your mayonnaise? Not as useful as Durkee's!

San Francisco Examiner - Aug 21, 1927



San Francisco Examiner - July 3, 1927

Posted By: Alex - Thu Mar 05, 2020 - Comments (5)
Category: Food, Mayonnaise, Advertising, 1920s

Whose fault is it when your husband is cross at breakfast?

Answer (according to 1920's ad men): It's the wife's fault for serving him coffee or tea.

Strange, because I'm pretty crabby in the morning if I don't have coffee.

The Helena Star - Oct 6, 1921

Posted By: Alex - Fri Feb 28, 2020 - Comments (4)
Category: Advertising, Husbands, Wives, 1920s

Airplane Hat

Created by Gilbert Myers of Boise, Idaho. He was evidently worried that someone might steal his idea because, in 1929, he patented it. From the patent:

an important object of this invention is to provide a novelty hat in the form of a simulated air plane intended to be worn during festivals, parades, dances, expositions lawn parties and the like especially when aviation is the subject of the celebration...

Use of a number of novelty hats constructed as herein disclosed has demonstrated that the hat enjoys the favor of adults as well as children and may be applied to heads of various sizes in a highly convenient and expeditious manner and will remain firmly in place, all without exerting an objectionable pressure on the head.



The picture below shows the airplane hat being worn. (The accompanying article identified it as Myers's hat).

Minneapolis Star Tribune - Feb 2, 1930



These other photos, of actress Alice White, I'm not so sure about. It looks a lot like his hat. If it isn't, someone ignored his patent.



source: Flickr



Battle Creek Enquirer - Jan 14, 1930

Posted By: Alex - Sun Feb 23, 2020 - Comments (2)
Category: Patents, Air Travel and Airlines, Headgear, 1920s

Unauthorized Dwellings 12

Once Manhattan was home to squatters. Go to article link for readable text.



Article source.

Posted By: Paul - Thu Feb 20, 2020 - Comments (2)
Category: Eccentrics, Urban Life, Unauthorized Dwellings, 1920s, Nostalgia

Mystery Illustration 92

What horrible tragedy is causing this houseguest to run away in so perilous and dramatic a manner?

The answer is here.

Or after the jump.



More in extended >>

Posted By: Paul - Mon Feb 03, 2020 - Comments (2)
Category: Domestic, 1920s

Follies of the Madmen #463

The most potent cosmic force in the multiverse approves of this floor polish.

Source.

Posted By: Paul - Tue Jan 28, 2020 - Comments (0)
Category: Anthropomorphism, Business, Advertising, Domestic, 1920s

The boy who was trained to be an astronaut

Jeanne Granveaud wanted her six-year-old son Paul to be an astronaut who would fly to the moon. So she began training him for this role. What made this unusual is that she came up with this plan back in the 1920s.



Some details about little Paul's training from the San Francisco Examiner (Aug 28, 1927):

The body of Baby Paul will be trained by exercises and food and careful scientific supervision to withstand the enormous strains of the starting of that wonderful voyage. He will be accustomed to breathe as little air as possible; to live in a rarified atmosphere or to endure the close confinement of the moon projectile.

So far as the hardships of a moon voyage can be foreseen, young Paul will be seasoned to them in advance. His scientific training will include the parts of astronomy which he must learn in order to navigate his queer craft when it gets well out in space. Every fact that terrestrial scientists can learn about the moon will be written down, not in any book for Paul to take along and read, but in a book which he cannot forget or leave behind. These facts will be poured into his brain. Better than an ordinary child knows the alphabet or the multiplication tables, Baby Paul Granveaud will learn to know each scrap of fact about the moon that the astronomers of the world can supply.

The mother's plan seemed incredibly eccentric to people in the 1920s, but in hindsight, her timing was pretty good. Paul was born in 1921, and Alan Shepard, who went to the moon in 1971, was born just two years later, in 1923. So it wouldn't have been impossible for Paul to have grown up to become a lunar astronaut. If only he had been born in America rather than France.

Edmonton Journal - Nov 12, 1927

Posted By: Alex - Mon Jan 13, 2020 - Comments (1)
Category: Spaceflight, Astronautics, and Astronomy, 1920s

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Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes.

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