In 1948, Washington's Mt. Rainier was considered to be the fourth highest mountain in the U.S., behind California's Mt. Whitney and Colorado's Mt. Elbert and Mt. Massive. But the difference between Rainier and the Colorado mountains was only a few feet. So Seattle chiropractor (and mountain-climbing enthusiast) C.A. Mittun came up with a plan to build a 24-foot mound of rocks on top of Mt. Rainier, thereby leapfrogging it from fourth place into second.
However, their plan never came to fruition. A Colorado-born park superintendent stopped Mittun and his team on their way up, telling them that their plan was illegal.
None of the articles from 1948 about Mittun's plan mentioned Colorado's Mt. Harvard, which
Wikipedia lists as being four-feet higher than Mt. Rainier. So sometime between 1948 and now the relative heights of the two mountains must have been adjusted, pushing Mt. Rainier further down the list. When Alaska became a state in 1959, Mt. Rainier fell far down the list to its current spot at #17.
Incidentally,
Mt. Harvard has its own history of being artificially raised. In the 1960s a group of Harvard graduates put a 14-foot flagpole on its summit in order to make it the second highest point in the contiguous United States. The flagpole stayed up for about 20 years.
Santa Cruz Sentinel - Aug 13, 1948
Hanford Morning Journal - Aug 17, 1948
Back in the 1930s, sociologist Gladys Sellew decided to find out if it was possible to survive spending only 15 cents a day on food. I think, in today's money, that would be about $3/day.
She used herself as a test subject and, five years later, reported that not only was it possible, but she actually only spent an average of 13 cents a day on food.
She said she was going to remain on her frugal diet for the rest of her life.
Austin American Statesman - June 3, 1942
The headline below claimed that she gained weight on her diet, but in the picture above it sure doesn't look like she had any extra weight on her.
Hartford Courant - Feb 24, 1941
A typical day's meal plan:
Austin American Statesman - June 3, 1942
By way of comparison, here's a more recent version of an experiment in frugality:
"Spending $5 a day on food. Is it possible?"
When you want to bring your dog to the office, he or she must be properly dressed in a business-like manner.
Patent here.
The Tri-Ang Toy company in the UK seems to have been a conventional and successful business. But then, in some fit of madness, they chose to release "Bolo--The New Game."
This torture apparatus surely looks to provide worse pain than the malady it purports to cure. A metal hook goes
under the toenail itself and yanks it up, whereupon it is strapped into position for permanent wear.
Full patent here.
Chick sexing is the profession of separating newly hatched female from male chicks. Hatcheries employ chick sexors so that they don't waste money feeding the male chicks that aren't going to grow up to lay eggs.
Differentiating a male from a female chick is quite challenging, especially doing this quickly. The techniques for doing so were first developed in Japan and then brought to America, where Japanese-Americans dominated the industry for most of the 20th century.
The main industry organization was the National Chick Sexing Association and School. But a smaller school, based in Atlanta Georgia in the late 1940s, called itself Speed-O-Sex.
Gotta wonder if that name ever caused confusion among local residents.
More info:
DiscoverNikkei.org
Chicago Japanese-American year book, 1947
Buy scotch tape, because it might help you in the event of chemical warfare.
Life - Sep 20, 1943