Category:
1930s
1930s
The Dimple Maker
Invented by Mrs. E. Isabella Gilbert in 1936 (although I think similar gadgets had been on the market before). They came with these instructions: "Wear dimplers five minutes at a time, two or three times a day, while dressing, resting, reading or writing. Look into the mirror and laugh. There will be a semblance of a line where you should always place the dimplers until your dimples are made."According to History By Zim: "The American Medical Association argued that the 'Dimple Maker' would not make dimples or even enlarge original dimples. They also stated that prolonged use of the devise may actually cause cancer."
Louisville Courier-Journal - June 19, 1937
Battle Creek Enquirer - June 19, 1937
Detroit Free Press - Aug 9, 1936
Medford Mail Tribune - Nov 22, 1936
Newsweek - June 19, 1937
1947: Erma Schnitter models the dimple maker
Update: I was curious to know when exactly the American Medical Association denounced the Dimple Maker, since the History by Zim blog didn't mention a date. I tracked it down to 1947, when the AMA put together a collection of quack medical products that it displayed on a nationwide tour of museums.
The Philadelphia Inquirer - Jan 11, 1948
Posted By: Alex - Sun Apr 23, 2017 -
Comments (1)
Category: Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Inventions, 1930s
Artwork Khrushchev Probably Would Not Have Liked 3
Continuing our survey of "Early Twentieth-Century Art That Might Have Irked A Soviet Premier, Based On His Explicit Disdain For Such Experimental Creations."
"In the Beginning" by Lawrence Atkinson.
Atkinson's Wikipedia entry.
An essay on Atkinson.
Posted By: Paul - Sat Apr 22, 2017 -
Comments (4)
Category: Art, Avant Garde, 1930s
Longest Sermon Ever
Back in 1937, Rev. A. Earl Lee set a record for preaching the longest sermon ever, preaching continuously for 21 hours. "He ate regular meals, preaching between bites, changed his clothes, and even took a bath while continuing the sermon by talking into a portable microphone."
Bradford Evening Star - June 29, 1937
However, it seems that world's longest sermon has been a hotly contested record. Today the record is up to 53 hours and 11 minutes. That record was set in 2014 by Florida pastor Zach Zehnder. Although it seems that he took some brief breaks for power naps. Is that allowed? Apparently so. In the video below you can watch the last 11 minutes of his sermon — and most of the rest of it is on YouTube if, for some reason, you want to sit through it.
Posted By: Alex - Fri Apr 21, 2017 -
Comments (2)
Category: World Records, 1930s
Follies of the Madmen #310
Mocking the ignorance of your desired customer: always a good move!
Original ad here.
Posted By: Paul - Sun Apr 09, 2017 -
Comments (0)
Category: Business, Advertising, Products, Hygiene, 1930s
Tooth Extraction and Marital Status
1930: Dr. C.F. B. Stowell, speaking to fellow dentists at the annual meeting of the American Dental Association, advised that if a young woman was unwed it would be better not to pull all her "devitalized teeth," because she "must be as beautiful as possible to secure a husband." But if the woman was married -- go ahead and pull those teeth!
Life - Feb 14, 1930
Lurking behind this statement, I believe, was the idea of "Focal infection theory." According to this theory, which was widely held by dentists in the 1920s and 30s, infected teeth were responsible for a variety of diseases including arthritis, cancer, and mental illness. So if there was any suspicion that a tooth was infected, it was better to pull it. In fact, it was often better to pull all a patient's teeth, whether or not they showed any signs of problems, just to be safe.
From wikipedia:
Unsuspected periapical disease was first revealed by dental X-ray in 1911, the year that Frank Billings lectured on focal infection to the Chicago Medical Society. Introduced by C Edmund Kells, the technology became used to feed the "mania of extracting devitalized teeth"... Many dentists were "100 percenters", extracting every tooth exhibiting either necrotic pulp or endodontic treatment, and extracted apparently healthy teeth, too, as suspected foci, leaving many persons toothless. A 1926 report published by several authors in Dental Cosmos—a dentistry journal where Willoughby Miller had published in the 1890s—advocated extraction of known healthy teeth to prevent focal infection. Endodontics nearly vanished from American dental education. Some dentists held that root canal therapy should be criminalized and penalized with six months of hard labor.
Lincoln Evening Journal - Jan 16, 1930
Posted By: Alex - Thu Apr 06, 2017 -
Comments (1)
Category: 1930s, Teeth
“Iron Mask” Wristwatch
I can't find any evidence for the widespread distribution of this watch outside this advertisement. Evidently, it did not catch on. Even Ebay does not seem to feature any as collectibles.
Of course, offering a watch that cost $17.50 (2017 equivalent: $307.40) during the Depression might have had something to do with their failure.
Original advertisement here. (Scroll down.)
Posted By: Paul - Sun Apr 02, 2017 -
Comments (3)
Category: Inventions, 1930s
Vine-Grown Booze Fruit
Surely in this day of genetic engineering, science could help realize this dream of Samuel Untermeyer's.
Original article here.
Posted By: Paul - Mon Mar 27, 2017 -
Comments (2)
Category: Eccentrics, Food, 1930s, Alcohol
How many ways are children annoying?
Back in 1931, Dr. Mandel Sherman, director of the Child Research Centre, wanted to find out the exact number of ways in which children annoy their parents. He came up with the oddly specific number of 2,124 different ways.He arrived at this number by having a group of parents carry notebooks around with them for a week and record each time their child annoyed them.
Some of the ways in which the children annoyed: being disobedient, being too slow or too quick, not being neat, primping, etc.
Personally, I think he seriously lowballed that number.
We've encountered the work of Dr. Sherman before. Back in 2009, I posted about his advice that instead of training kids to be successful in life, we should train them to accept the inevitability of failure. That way, they'll be much happier when they actually do end up as mediocre flops.
The New York Times - Jan 30, 1931
Posted By: Alex - Mon Mar 20, 2017 -
Comments (3)
Category: Psychology, Children, Parents, 1930s
Brake Reaction Time
In the mid 1930s, Dr. Harry DeSilva of the Massachusetts State College at Amherst created a brake reaction test to measure how quickly drivers can step on the brake in response to a red light. He took it around the country and tested thousands of people.People in their mid 20s generally had the quickest reaction times, and then times declined with age, which wasn't a surprise. Slightly more surprising was that short people generally had faster responses than tall people. From Time magazine (Aug 1935):
The average reaction time was .43 sec. The fastest was .26 sec. The slowest was .90 sec. It was found that tall persons generally react a little more slowly than short people, no doubt because motor nerve impulses travel through the body at about 300 ft. per sec. and thus for tall persons the motor impulse would take longer to go from the brain to the foot. Another theory is that short people simply have less leg to deal with.
Time - Aug 26, 1935
Democrat and Chronicle - Mar 15, 1936
Posted By: Alex - Fri Mar 17, 2017 -
Comments (4)
Category: Motor Vehicles, Cars, Psychology, 1930s
Follies of the Madmen #307
Original ad here.
Posted By: Paul - Wed Mar 15, 2017 -
Comments (6)
Category: Business, Advertising, Domestic, Wives, 1930s
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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. Paul Di Filippo 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. Contact Us |