Category:
1920s

An orthopedic appliance to produce permanent smiles

Patented by Josephine Rountree in 1926.

I wouldn't call having this thing strapped to your face as "without inconvenience to the user."

My invention relates to orthopedic appliances and has particular reference to an appliance adapted to be worn by the user, after retiring, whereby certain facial muscles will be trained to gradually produce the permanent effect of a smile on the countenance of the person using the appliance. The primary object of the invention is to produce such an effect and to counteract the sagging of the muscles around the corners of the mouth, due in most cases to advancing years.

Another object of the invention is to provide an appliance which will gradually train the muscles at the corners of the mouth into the position assumed by the act of smiling, without inconvenience to the user.

Posted By: Alex - Sun Jul 02, 2023 - Comments (5)
Category: Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Patents, 1920s

Immorality of artificial legs

Mrs. J.D. Grudger is the perfect name for a bluenose.

Wichita Daily Times - Dec 9, 1928

Posted By: Alex - Mon Jun 26, 2023 - Comments (5)
Category: Censorship, Bluenoses, Taboos, Prohibitions and Other Cultural No-No’s, 1920s

Unreal News Reel No. 2

A relentless compilation of silliness.

Posted By: Paul - Sun May 21, 2023 - Comments (1)
Category: Humor, Movies, 1920s

Body Exerciser

This looks like an excellent way to wreck your vertebrae.

Full patent here.

Posted By: Paul - Fri May 12, 2023 - Comments (0)
Category: Exercise and Fitness, Inventions, Patents, 1920s

Milk-Drinking Contest

1928: Manly competition at the Hoover Vacuum Cleaner Company's employee picnic

A milk drinking contest, conducted in the good old fashioned way, right out of a nursing bottle with a rubber nipple


Omaha Evening Bee-News - May 28, 1928

Posted By: Alex - Tue May 09, 2023 - Comments (1)
Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests, Sports, 1920s

Miracle Dentistry

No need for dentists. Just pray away your tooth troubles!



Lloyd Bovee lived for over 50 more years. No mention of tooth problems in his obituary.

Posted By: Alex - Fri Apr 28, 2023 - Comments (1)
Category: Religion, 1920s, Teeth

Symphony of Factory Sirens

I'm sure Khrushchev would have approved of this music, even if he didn't like it. I made it about two minutes in before I bailed.

Info from 120 Years of Electronic Music:

The Russian avant-garde composer and theorist, Arseny Mikhailovich Avraamov is probably best known for his "Simfoniya Gudkov" or "Symphony of Sirens" (November 7, 1922, Baku, USSR – an epic production which involved a score that coordinated navy ship sirens and whistles, bus and car horns, factory sirens, cannons, the foghorns of the entire Soviet flotilla of the Caspian Sea, artillery guns, machine guns, seaplanes, a specially designed "whistle main," and renderings of Internationale and Marseillaise by a mass band and choir.)


More info from Sirens by Michael Bull:

Arseny Avraamov... in 1922 performed his 'Symphony of Factory Sirens' in Baku in order to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the October Revolution in Russia. The symphony, not recorded, used a wide variety of sirens together with a renditioning of the International and Marseillaise sung by choirs and the public. Avramov rejected any distinction between performers and listeners, expecting everybody to play a part either singing or in making other industrial noises. . .

Avraamov himself pursued a self-conscious course of social and economic liberation, which he perceived embodied all Russians since the October Revolution, in this ideology sirens were seen as an ideal replacement for church bells in the Russia of the 1920s as church bells were seen as bourgeois as against the industrial and proletarian sound of sirens.

Posted By: Alex - Mon Apr 24, 2023 - Comments (2)
Category: Music, Industry, Factories and Manufacturing, 1920s

Will Rogers Nominates Henry Ford for President

The election season heats up!



Posted By: Paul - Mon Apr 17, 2023 - Comments (0)
Category: Politics, Historical Figure, 1920s, Comedians, Cars

Rubber Beauty Mask

"the best time to slip it on is when nobody is looking, as its beauty is of the kind that frightens the neighbor's children."

Popular Science Monthly - Feb 1922



source: Wellcome Collection



A reference to rubber beauty masks in verse, from the poet Berton Braley:

Owensboro Messenger - Aug 26, 1916

Posted By: Alex - Thu Apr 13, 2023 - Comments (1)
Category: Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Costumes and Masks, 1920s

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Alex Boese
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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Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1.

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