Category:
1940s
1940s
Early Sexbots
Posted By: Paul - Wed Apr 09, 2014 -
Comments (3)
Category: Puppets and Automatons, Sex Toys, 1930s, 1940s
Windostep
[Click to enlarge]
I'd like to see anyone trust their life to this thing above the first floor of a house.
And what a weird come-on. "Live in a house?" No, a barn!
Original ad here.
Posted By: Paul - Sun Apr 06, 2014 -
Comments (11)
Category: Domestic, Chindogu, 1940s
Would you like a little DDT with your food?
Jones Beach, New York, 1948. Model Kay Heffernon poses with a hot dog and coke as a cloud of DDT from a Todd Insecticidal Fog Applicator (TIFA) wafts around her, demonstrating that the bug spray won't contaminate her food.
New Jersey Children play in a cloud of DDT
Some background info from the website of TIFA international. Evidently these photos, from Life magazine, were intended to convince residents of New York and New Jersey that being covered in DDT was nothing to worry about:
In 1947, the New York City Health Department decided to use the TIFA Fogging Machine for insect and disease control for the first time in its vector control history and put more than 12 TIFA Fogging Machines into service. The Todd Shipyard technical engineers also provided, at no charge, several very successful training programs for New York City’s local technicians. The usage of the TIFA Fogging machines has now been standardized in more than 2,000 communities throughout Asia, Europe, Africa and South America as they are considered the most effective tool available in vector control programs worldwide, because of their easy operation, low maintenance and minimum services along with an average life expectancy of at least 25 years and more.
Posted By: Alex - Sat Apr 05, 2014 -
Comments (12)
Category: 1940s
Pet Fawn
Back in the 1940s, Beth Pitt liked to take her pet fawn named "Star Messenger" on walks through New York City. As reported by The New Yorker in its Dec 6, 1941 issue:
Talk story about Beth Pitt, who shares her one-room apartment on W. 58th Street with Star Messenger, a fawn. The fawn is five months old & has been with Miss Pitt since her ninth day on earth. Miss Pitt paid $75 for her at a deer farm near Catskill. A stream of minor city officials has investigated the apartment -they were looking for an elk. Miss Pitt has taught her to click her heels, salute, & perform a weaving jig. She lets her off her leash for a romp in the Park.
It was the part about letting the fawn roam off-leash in Central Park that eventually got her in trouble, landing her a $2 fine.
Posted By: Alex - Wed Apr 02, 2014 -
Comments (8)
Category: Animals, 1940s
Kiss Me Necktie
[Click to re-size]
Did this ever work? And why did the tie turn the wearer into an African-American when activated, as shown at the bottom of the ad?
Posted By: Paul - Mon Mar 31, 2014 -
Comments (2)
Category: Fashion, Signage, 1940s, Women
Gay’s Lion Farm
For almost 20 years, the only commercial lion breeding facility (and tourist attraction) "in the world."
The Wikipedia entry.
Article from 1926.
Posted By: Paul - Wed Mar 26, 2014 -
Comments (5)
Category: Animals, Farming, Sightseeing, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s
Life in America: 1948
Posted By: Paul - Sat Mar 22, 2014 -
Comments (7)
Category: Customs, 1940s, North America
Art of the Insane
In early 1946, the St. Anne Insane Asylum in Paris exhibited some of the art work of its inmates. Collecting the art of people identified as insane seems to have been a trend at the time. See, for instance, the book of "Poetry of the Insane," published in 1933, that I posted about back in Feb 2013.The Associated Press caption on the top picture notes, "The writing is a miscellany of seemingly unconnected Gibberish, with no apparent relationship to the drawing."
Posted By: Alex - Fri Mar 21, 2014 -
Comments (4)
Category: Art, 1940s, Mental Health and Insanity
Forest Fire Lamp
[Click to enlarge]
Favorite illumination of arsonists everywhere!
Original ad here. (Page 25.)
Posted By: Paul - Fri Mar 21, 2014 -
Comments (10)
Category: Destruction, Appliances, 1940s
Good with first names
This photo was taken by Time-Life photographer David Scherman in 1943. According to the caption, it shows a local businessman in Kerry, Ireland who "claims to know everyone in Ireland by their first name."
If he knew everyone in Ireland by their first name, that means he must have met everyone in the country, which would have been an impressive feat. Or he was lying. Or he called everyone by the same name.
Posted By: Alex - Sun Mar 16, 2014 -
Comments (9)
Category: 1940s
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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 |