Houses Integrated with Trees

I once ate at a restaurant in Medellin, Colombia, which featured a massive tree in the dining area that grew up through the roof. The urge to blend trees with houses is an ancient one.

Here's an instance from 1920.



This article details modern occurences of the motif.

Posted By: Paul - Mon Dec 12, 2022 - Comments (0)
Category: Architecture, Domestic, Nature, 1920s

Charles Garland and his Love Farm

Elon Musk, stand back!

If you inherited a ton of money at a young age, you too might be confused about how to live. At first, you might radically decide not to accept the fortune. Then, you might decide to use it for charitable purposes. Finally, you might opt to establish a free-love commune.

That's the path that one Charles Garland took. Read his whole story at Wikipedia.

After his separation from his wife, Garland established two successive agricultural communes, or "colonies of idealists", both named April Farm.[19] The first April Farm, in which Garland lived from January 1922, was at North Carver, Massachusetts.[22] In 1924, Garland moved to a new "April Farm" in Lower Milford Township, Pennsylvania.[19]

Garland scandalized polite society by inviting young women to live with him at these colonies, where he planned to "work out the problems of life".

Naturally, newspapers had a field day with all this.

Posted By: Paul - Thu Nov 10, 2022 - Comments (3)
Category: Money, Communes, Utopias, and Other Alternative Societies, Public Indecency, Bohemians, Beatniks, Hippies and Slackers, 1920s

Newana Gayfish, Native American Flapper

Get the full story here.

Posted By: Paul - Thu Oct 27, 2022 - Comments (0)
Category: Domestic, Fads, Wives, Hair Styling, 1920s, Native Americans

The NuGrape Twins

The NuGrape Twins were a Georgia blues and gospel duo who recorded in the 1920s. Very little is known about them. Were they really twins? No one knows.

What is clear is that they liked NuGrape soda. They only recorded six songs (all for Columbia Records), and two of them were about NuGrape. "I've Got Your Ice-Cold NuGrape" is considered to be their masterpiece. Dylan Kenny, of Yale Daily News, writes, "it’s catchy, it’s weird, it’s an excellent pop song."

Were the NuGrape Twins being paid by NuGrape to sing these songs? Again, no one knows. It seems more likely that they were just big fans of the soda.





I'd never heard of NuGrape soda before, but apparently it's still available. Though it's hard to find outside of the southeast United States.

Posted By: Alex - Mon Oct 24, 2022 - Comments (1)
Category: Music, Soda, Pop, Soft Drinks and other Non-Alcoholic Beverages, 1920s

Louis Duprey’s Trapdoor Theater Seats

One of the minor annoyances of going to a theater is having your view blocked if someone in front of you gets up from their seat. Or having to stand from your seat to let someone get by.

Back in 1924, Louis Duprey patented a solution to this problem. He envisioned a theater in which guests would enter through a subchamber, get into their seats, and then be raised upwards by a hydraulic lift, through a trapdoor, into the theater itself. Anyone who wanted to leave early could simply lower themself back down, disturbing no one else.

It's an over-engineered solution to a minor problem, but I would happily pay extra, at least once, to experience a theater like this. Though I'd probably spend the entire time going up and down in my chair.

More info: Patent No. 1,517,774
Related Posts: Thomas Curtis Gray's horizontal theater, Theater in a Whale, Lloyd Brown's Globe Theater





via New Scientist

Posted By: Alex - Thu Oct 20, 2022 - Comments (6)
Category: Architecture, Entertainment, Theater and Stage, Patents, 1920s

Miss Esperanto

I have three references to this contest, from 1929, 1963 and 1967. No firm idea of how long it lasted, if it's still going on, or if it was held faithfully every year.

Puccini's opera 'La 66Bohème' was performed as a special performance for the Esperantists. Finally, Miss Maria Wenczel from Hungary was chosen as 'Miss Esperanto 1963'. Diethilde Magori from Germany and Helen Salmos from Sweden took second and third place in this competition. After the end of the congress, the young people drove to Sofija in a special caravan, where they were expected by the 48th Esperanto World Congress.

Posted By: Paul - Sun Oct 16, 2022 - Comments (0)
Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests, Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Languages, 1920s, 1950s, 1960s

The Cures of Albert Abrams

As his Wikipedia page tells us:

Albert Abrams (December 8, 1863 – January 13, 1924) was a controversial American physician, well known during his life for inventing machines, such as the "Oscilloclast" and the "Radioclast", which he falsely claimed could diagnose and cure almost any disease.[1] These claims were challenged from the outset. Towards the end of his life, and again shortly after his death, many of his machines and conclusions were demonstrated to be intentionally deceptive or false.[2]

He actually published a whole periodical devoted to his theories. Read an issue here.

Hugo Gernsback, the father of modern science fiction, was having none of this, running the expose below in a 1923 issue of his magazine SCIENCE AND INVENTION.

Posted By: Paul - Fri Oct 14, 2022 - Comments (3)
Category: Frauds, Cons and Scams, Hoaxes and Imposters and Imitators, Medicine, Patent Medicines, Nostrums and Snake Oil, 1920s

Faking Someone Else’s Death

Modern life is full of stories about 1) people who fake their own death; and 2) people who fake having an illness (usually cancer) in order to get money. But this episode seems unique in that the scammers faked the death of someone else to get money.

Source: North Mail Newcastle Daily Chronicle (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Tyne and Wear, England) 28 Apr 1926, Wed Page 11

Posted By: Paul - Mon Aug 22, 2022 - Comments (0)
Category: Death, Scams, Cons, Rip-offs, and General Larceny, 1920s, United Kingdom

The Fuse Ball

In 1926, Philip S. Kane of Pennsylvania received a patent for his "fuse ball" (Patent No. 1,583,721). It was a golf ball with a fuse. Before teeing off, you'd light the fuse, which would then start emitting smoke. That way, you could find the ball wherever you hit it, even if it landed in tall grass.

According to various media reports, while testing his ball Kane accidentally set a wheat field on fire, but I haven't seen any proof to back up that story.

Posted By: Alex - Mon Aug 15, 2022 - Comments (0)
Category: Sports, Golf, Patents, 1920s

The May Queen of the Pennsylvania College for Women

Flanked by her attendants, May Queen Anna Negley '27, sits on her seashell throne. By the mid-1920s, Pennsylvania College for Women held a May Day pageant every other year. The 1927 pageant had an undersea theme and featured a magic throne, pirates, Neptune, Davy Jones, mermaids, and other sea people. Titled, “Deep Sea Caverns,” the festival was written by Helen Gordon ’28 and Ethel Hamilton ’28 (Hamilton passed away before graduating.). Vanda Kerst once again directed the production and designed the costumes.

Posted By: Paul - Tue Aug 02, 2022 - Comments (2)
Category: Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Contests, Races and Other Competitions, Oceans and Maritime Pursuits, 1920s, Universities, Colleges, Private Schools and Academia