Category:
1940s
1940s
Hair tonic salesman sues wig company
1941: Carl Hutzmann, hair tonic salesman, sued a wig supplier on account of late delivery of a wig. "Hutzmann said that he had to appear before his prospective customers with a receding hair line, so the wig was of no use to him later."
Brooklyn Daily Eagle - Mar 27, 1941
Posted By: Alex - Thu Dec 03, 2020 -
Comments (0)
Category: Patent Medicines, Nostrums and Snake Oil, 1940s, Hair and Hairstyling
Abacus vs. Calculator
Nov 1946: In a contest of old vs. new technology, the abacus beat a calculator in a contest of speed in all categories (addition, subtraction, and division) except multiplication.I'm assuming a modern computer should now be able to outperform an abacus, though I suppose it would depend on how quickly one can input the numbers.
More info: Abacus vs. the Electric Calculator
The Californian - Nov 11, 1946
Detroit Free Press - Nov 4, 1946
Posted By: Alex - Wed Dec 02, 2020 -
Comments (5)
Category: Technology, Computers, 1940s
Church challenge
1941: Patrick Gunn, 46, left a note in the church collection plate challenging the priest, Monsignor Edmund J. Reilly, to a fight in the street.I found a photo of the Monsignor. He doesn't look like the fighting type.
Wilmington News Journal - Mar 24, 1941
Monsignor Edmund J. Reilly
source: FindAGrave.com
Posted By: Alex - Sat Nov 28, 2020 -
Comments (1)
Category: Religion, Violence, 1940s
Family Reunion
Source (page 14).
Posted By: Paul - Thu Nov 19, 2020 -
Comments (2)
Category: Destruction, Family, Injuries, Synchronicity and Coincidence, 1940s
The Shipwreck Diet
Studies conducted by the U.S. Army in the late 1940s sought to determine the minimum amount of food a person would need to survive if they were shipwrecked on a desert island.One of the oddities the researchers discovered was that if, for some reason, the shipwrecked person had to choose between steak and water, they should choose the water: "Protein has the effect of drying up the body. Therefore eating a steak on a desert island with little or no water available would probably be worse than eating nothing, depending upon how long rescue took."
"Shipwreck Diet: One of eleven Army volunteers who for six weeks will live on biscuits and water at the Metropolitan Hospital, New York City, to determine a human survival ration."
Newsweek - Mar 15, 1948
Waterloo Courier - Nov 16, 1949
Posted By: Alex - Mon Nov 16, 2020 -
Comments (4)
Category: Food, Nutrition, Experiments, 1940s, Dieting and Weight Loss
Graduated Alone
May 1949: Eva Mae Bradbury was the only member of her graduating class at the public school in Ada, Kansas. The school nevertheless put on a full commencement program for her, attended by 150 people (which was about the entire population of Ada).
Decatur Herald and Review - May 21, 1949
Posted By: Alex - Thu Nov 05, 2020 -
Comments (2)
Category: School, 1940s
250 Times I Saw a Play
Keith Odo Newman, whom the Guardian has described as "a homosexual Austrian psychoanalyst," authored 250 Times I Saw A Play, which was published in 1944. As the title suggests, it describes his experience of watching a play 250 times. The play was Flare Path by Terence Rattigan.
The backstory here is that Newman was Rattigan's doctor. According to TactNYC.org:
When World War II broke out, Rattigan, who was seeing a bizarrely charismatic psychiatrist named Dr. Keith Newman, decided, with the encouragement of his doctor, to enlist with the RAF. Despite the fact that he wasn’t at all mechanically inclined and was a social snob, Rattigan flourished in the egalitarian RAF, mastering the technical requirements and becoming an air gunner wireless operator (like Dusty Miller in Flare Path). It was while he was serving active duty that he wrote Flare Path and its creation seemed to dissolve the writer’s block under which Rattigan was suffering.
For some reason, Rattigan asked Newman to personally direct the performance of the lead actor in the play, Jack Watling, and Newman proceeded to become obsessed with Watling. Which is why, I assume, Newman ended up watching the play 250 times. Rattigan's biographer, Geoffrey Wansell, offers more details:
During rehearsals, which took place at the Apollo, Newman said nothing. 'He just sat there in the stalls, silent', according to Watling. 'But just before the play opened in Oxford, where I was to stay with him in his flat at Number 36 Holywell, he took me to the Lake District for three days of what he called intensive voice training.' The psychiatrist had devised a set of vocal exercises, which he insisted he practised for hours at a time. 'It was unbelievable,' Watling recalled. 'He took over my life completely.'...
At this stage Newman had not made a homosexual pass at Watling. That came later. Newman simply frightened him beyond words. 'I couldn't do anything without asking his permission. I was heterosexual then, and I am now, but Newman pretty much gave me a nervous breakdown. I couldn't cope with him.' Why Newman had this power, or why people submitted to him, Watling is just as unable to explain now as he was then.
At this stage Newman had not made a homosexual pass at Watling. That came later. Newman simply frightened him beyond words. 'I couldn't do anything without asking his permission. I was heterosexual then, and I am now, but Newman pretty much gave me a nervous breakdown. I couldn't cope with him.' Why Newman had this power, or why people submitted to him, Watling is just as unable to explain now as he was then.
After completing his odd book, Newman sent the manuscript to George Bernard Shaw, who wrote back with a few of his thoughts about it. Shaw's comments weren't very complimentary, but Newman nevertheless included a facsimile of them at the front of the book. Shaw wrote:
I don't know what to say about this book. The experience on which it is founded is so extraordinary, that an honest record of it should be preserved. But it would have driven me mad; and I am not sure that the author came out of it without a slight derangement.
Sure enough, Newman was subsequently certified insane and died in a mental institution.
Posted By: Alex - Mon Nov 02, 2020 -
Comments (1)
Category: Theater and Stage, Books, 1940s
Demoralize Nazis with tea
1940: Stephens Fothergill of London had a very British plan to defeat the Nazis:"I would allow the German army to march into London, and instead of greeting them with machine guns, I would give them cups of tea. That would completely demoralize them."
St. Louis Post-Dispatch - Feb 15, 1940
Posted By: Alex - Wed Oct 28, 2020 -
Comments (2)
Category: Military, War, 1940s
My Old Flame
A song that goes rapidly off the rails around the one-minute mark, with some Halloween relevance.
Posted By: Paul - Sun Oct 25, 2020 -
Comments (4)
Category: Hoaxes and Imposters and Imitators, Horror, Music, 1940s, Parody
Ruby Barnett, machine-gun tester
Mrs. Ruby Barnett was one of 1000 women employed at the Aberdeen Proving ground during World War II. Her job there was to test guns, and she attracted quite a bit of media attention because she was a grandmother and didn't exactly look like the kind of person one would expect to see behind a .50 caliber machine gun.Apparently she was only 40, but she already had three grandkids.
Source: Google Arts & Culture
Grandmother, 40, Tests All Kinds of Weapons, Except Large Cannon, at Aberdeen; is Used to the Noise Now
Mrs. Ruby Barnett, 40, said today as she went about her job of testing all kinds of guns—except 16-inch cannon—that she found nothing inconsistent in gun-firing by day and rocking the cradle of her third and newest grandchild by night.
"Hitler hasn't respected grandmothers or little children in this war and I guess American grandmothers will have to pitch in and fight him any way they can," she said, as she turned from the anti-tank gun, loaded a .50 caliber machine-gun and banged away with nonchalance and a terrific din.
The youthful grandmother, wife of a World War veteran, is employed by the Army, along with 1,000 other women, to test ordnance materiel at the government's oldest and largest proving ground here.
Wilmington Morning News - Oct 2, 1942
Mrs. Ruby Barnett, 40, said today as she went about her job of testing all kinds of guns—except 16-inch cannon—that she found nothing inconsistent in gun-firing by day and rocking the cradle of her third and newest grandchild by night.
"Hitler hasn't respected grandmothers or little children in this war and I guess American grandmothers will have to pitch in and fight him any way they can," she said, as she turned from the anti-tank gun, loaded a .50 caliber machine-gun and banged away with nonchalance and a terrific din.
The youthful grandmother, wife of a World War veteran, is employed by the Army, along with 1,000 other women, to test ordnance materiel at the government's oldest and largest proving ground here.
Wilmington Morning News - Oct 2, 1942
Source: OldMagazineArticles.com
Posted By: Alex - Wed Oct 14, 2020 -
Comments (8)
Category: 1940s, Weapons
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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 |