Category:
1930s

Mystery Gadget 111

What will this machine do? Hint: atmospheric.

The answer is here.

Or after the jump.



More in extended >>

Posted By: Paul - Sun Jun 02, 2024 - Comments (0)
Category: Technology, 1930s

Miniature Golf Record



Page 18 of Pawtucket Times, published in Pawtucket, Rhode Island on Tuesday, November 4th, 1930





Posted By: Paul - Thu May 30, 2024 - Comments (0)
Category: Sports, World Records, 1930s

Illuminated Advertising Tower

I want to live in the alternate timeline where these towers have replaced billboards.


Full patent here.



Posted By: Paul - Fri May 24, 2024 - Comments (1)
Category: Excess, Overkill, Hyperbole and Too Much Is Not Enough, Advertising, Patents, 1930s

The Ediphone Sets You Free

Businessman likes to imagine that because he doesn't always have enough time to dictate correspondence to his secretary that he's clearly "chained down like a galley slave."

More info about Ediphones.

The Reporter with Postage and the Mailbag - Sep 1939

Posted By: Alex - Tue May 21, 2024 - Comments (0)
Category: Technology, Telephones, Advertising, 1930s

The doctor who made rats go insane

Dr. Norman Maier is pretty much unknown today, but Wikipedia notes that his research "received extensive publicity in its day." That research involved making rats go insane.



Life - Mar 6, 1939





The cause of man's mental suffering identified: not being given his breakfast promptly at 7 am.

The Michigan scientist said he could not actually say that his rats suffered nervous breakdowns when they were frustrated, but that their reactions resembled very closely the reactions of human beings when they did not get what they wanted.

Thus a man who is "conditioned" to expect his breakfast promptly at 7 o'clock in the morning and does not get it may develop a nervous disorder if his wife fails to provide it at that time for many mornings in succession.

Detroit Free Press - Jan 1, 1939

Posted By: Alex - Mon May 13, 2024 - Comments (2)
Category: Animals, Psychology, 1930s

Rooftop Runway

Landing a plane on a giant treadmill mounted on top of a skyscraper. What could possibly go wrong?

Modern Mechanics - Feb 1930

Posted By: Alex - Sun May 12, 2024 - Comments (0)
Category: Architecture, Air Travel and Airlines, 1930s

Device to self-administer gas

This curious device was featured in Mechanix Illustrated (July 1938), but no info was given about the inventor.



So I searched the patent archive. This patent granted to Justin Sholes in 1939 seems to be it:


Posted By: Alex - Thu Apr 25, 2024 - Comments (2)
Category: Drugs, Patents, 1930s

Humanised Trufood

Make sure your food has been humanised...

Daily Telegraph - Jan 28, 1937



Post-Graduate Medical Journal - June 1935

Posted By: Alex - Sat Apr 06, 2024 - Comments (6)
Category: Babies, Food, Advertising, 1930s

Stocking-Repairing Beetle

The "Aprilscherz" (April Fool) of an unnamed German magazine, as reported in Life (Apr 4, 1938):





Posted By: Alex - Mon Apr 01, 2024 - Comments (1)
Category: Holidays, Insects and Spiders, 1930s

Estate Willed by Talkie

Video wills have become quite common, but they weren't back in 1931. So the unnamed testator described below was breaking new ground by creating one (or rather, a filmed will).

I particularly like the detail that he left instructions on where everyone should sit while watching the film, so that he could look at each person directly from the grave.

Wichita Eagle - Jan 10, 1931

Posted By: Alex - Sat Mar 30, 2024 - Comments (0)
Category: Death, Inheritance and Wills, Law, Movies, 1930s

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