Category:
1950s

An Upside-Down Experiment

In 1950, graduate student Fred Snyder of the University of Wichita spent 30 days wearing special glasses that inverted his vision. It was part of an experiment designed by Dr. N.H. Pronko, head of the psychology department, to see if a person could adapt to seeing everything upside-down. The answer was that, yes, Snyder gradually adapted to inverted vision. And when the experiment ended he had to re-adapt to seeing the world right-side-up.

Snyder and Pronko described the experiment in their 1952 book, Vision with Spatial Inversion. From the book's intro:

Suppose that we attached lenses to the eyes of a newborn child, lenses having the property of reversing right-left and up and down. Suppose, also, that the child wore the lenses through childhood, boyhood, and young manhood. What would happen if these inverting lenses were finally removed on his twenty-fifth birthday? Would he be nauseated and unable to reach and walk and read?

Such an experiment is out of the question, of course. Yet another experiment was made: a young man was persuaded to wear inverting lenses for 30 days, and his experiences are reported here. His continued progress, after an initial upset, suggests that new perceptions do develop in the same way as the original perceptions did. Life situations suggest the same thing. Dentists learn to work via a mirror in the patient's mouth until the action is automatic. In the early days of television, cameramen had to "pan" their cameras with a reversed view. Later the image in the camera was corrected to correspond with the scene being panned. The changeover caused considerable confusion to cameramen until they learned appropriate visual-motor coordinations. Fred Snyder, the subject of our upside-down experiment, found himself in a similar predicament, at least for a time.


Images from Life - Sep 18, 1950:







"Graduate student Fred Snyder falling down after removing special eyeglasses that reverse and invert everything he sees. Immediately before removing glasses he rode a bicycle with perfect control along sidewalk in Central Park."

Posted By: Alex - Mon Mar 25, 2024 - Comments (2)
Category: Experiments, 1950s, Eyes and Vision

Defecation relief unit for aeroplane personnel

How do fighter pilots poop while in the air? I think the answer is that they try very hard not to, because if they have to go, they're going in their flight suit. Back in the 1950s Constantin Paul Lent, et al., tried to come up with an alternative. From their patent (No. 2,749,558):

This device relates to feces and urine elimination cabinets and more particularly to defecation relief devices used by aircraft pilots and other key flying personnel. More particularly it relates to feces and urine elimination cabinets which may find utilization in single pilot driven aircraft.

Comparatively speaking it is an easy matter to provide adequate latrines for the men in the forces on land and sea. When the time comes to eliminate, one just walks to the nearest comfort station. But in the Air Force the problem of elimination can not be always solved that easily especially by aviation pilots...

The applicants are cognizant that there are relief tubes provided on most all jet planes for urinating, but no single seat aircraft is equipped with a safe and sure means for defecation. When the pilot of the jet, due to accident or enemy action needs to eliminate, the problem of defecation becomes acute. The pilot must wait until he lands his craft; and quite often he must remain aloft for a considerable length of time before he has a chance to visit a comfort station on the ground. In many cases due to the physiological and psychological effects produced on the pilot by enemy action, he is forced to eliminate even before he has a chance to land his plane.


Posted By: Alex - Sun Mar 24, 2024 - Comments (0)
Category: Flight, Patents, Excrement, Air Travel and Airlines, 1950s

For relief of emotional stress

For housewives on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Medical Economics - Mar 2, 1959

Posted By: Alex - Wed Mar 20, 2024 - Comments (1)
Category: Medicine, Psychology, 1950s

Weird Easter Hats

The strange hats appear about halfway thru.

Posted By: Paul - Fri Mar 15, 2024 - Comments (0)
Category: Holidays, Easter, Headgear, 1950s, United Kingdom

Person-Alysis Game

Reveal which member of the family has an Oedipus Complex! Who's a sociopath? Good fun!

The entry at Board Game Geek.



Posted By: Paul - Thu Mar 14, 2024 - Comments (0)
Category: Bad Habits, Neuroses and Psychoses, Games, Hobbies and DIY, Psychology, 1950s

Miss Electric Bedding

Advertising Age ran a photo of "Miss Electric Bedding" in its Nov 10, 1952 issue. But it didn't give her name.

Advertising Age - Nov 10, 1952



A month later, reports appeared in a number of newspapers stating that actress Viveca Lindfors had declined to be crowned "Miss Electric Bedding."

Daily Mirror - Dec 16, 1952



I'm not sure if that's Viveca Lindfors in the Advertising Age photo, but it definitely could be. I'm leaning towards thinking it is. And if it is, it's confusing why it was reported that she declined to be Miss Electric Bedding. After all, there she is.

My best guess: the Advertising Age photo shows her modeling as Miss Electric Bedding for the Chicago Electric Association. The later news report says she refused an offer from the New York Electric Assn. So she must have done the electric bedding modeling gig in Chicago, but then declined to do it elsewhere.

Viveca Lindfors - image source: wikipedia

Posted By: Alex - Sun Mar 10, 2024 - Comments (1)
Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests, 1950s

Husbands too like Premarin

Make your wife pleasant again with Premarin!

The physician who puts a woman on "Premarin" when she is suffering in the menopause usually makes her pleasant to live with once again. It is no easy thing for a man to take the stings and barbs of business life, then to come home to the turmoil of a woman "going through the change of life." If she is not on "Premarin," that is.

By the 1990s, Premarin had become the most frequently prescribed medication in the United States. Now, according to Wikipedia, it's down to number 283.

The word 'Premarin' is a portmanteau of PREgnant MAre uRINe.



JAMA - Aug 16, 1958

Posted By: Alex - Tue Mar 05, 2024 - Comments (1)
Category: Medicine, Advertising, Husbands, Wives, 1950s

Falsies on Freeway

Falsies, or miniature Kendall paracones?

Los Angeles Times - Oct 26, 1954



Rushville Republican - Oct 26, 1954

Posted By: Alex - Sat Mar 02, 2024 - Comments (0)
Category: Transportation, 1950s

Making a road safe for the Queen Mother

I'm puzzled by the timing of the operation described below. Tarmac was laid, the Queen Mother arrived and reviewed the guard of honor, then the tarmac was removed again — all within the space of two hours. That doesn't seem like long enough for the tarmac to have dried. Did they have her walking on wet tarmac?

London Sunday Dispatch - May 18, 1958

Posted By: Alex - Thu Feb 22, 2024 - Comments (3)
Category: Royalty, 1950s

Miss Frozen Rabbit Meat

In the 1950s there was a brief effort to make rabbit meat a more mainstream part of the American diet. In 1957, this led to the crowning of "Miss Frozen Rabbit Meat," whose job it was to convince housewives to buy more frozen rabbit meat.

I know it's possible to get rabbit meat in specialty butcher shops and markets here in the U.S., but I've never seen it in an American supermarket. So the effort to make it more mainstream evidently fizzled.

More info: Lola Mason's imdb page
Related Post: Recipes for Cooking Domestic Rabbit Meat

Daily Telegraph - Oct 26, 1957



Longview Daily News - Mar 31, 1958



Below, part of the marketing campaign to get Americans to eat more rabbit.

How many times have you said to yourself, or perhaps out loud, "I wish there were some new meat animal"?

Baltimore Evening Sun - July 18, 1957

Posted By: Alex - Sat Feb 17, 2024 - Comments (10)
Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests, Food, 1950s

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