A Manual of Gesture

Posted By: Paul - Sat Jun 22, 2019 - Comments (1)
Category: Body, Etiquette and Formal Behavior, Experts and Authority Figures, Nineteenth Century

Mystery Gadget 77

Posted By: Paul - Mon Jun 17, 2019 - Comments (4)
Category: Eighteenth Century, Nineteenth Century

The Prix Guzman

The Prix Pierre Guzman (Pierre Guzman Prize) was the name given to two prizes, one astronomical and one medical. Both were established by the will of Anne Emilie Clara Goguet (died June 30, 1891), wife of Marc Guzman, and named after her son Pierre Guzman. This prize was a sum of 100,000 francs, to be given to a person who succeeded in communicating with a celestial body, other than Mars, and receiving a response.

Posted By: Paul - Fri May 31, 2019 - Comments (3)
Category: Aliens, Certificates, Diplomas, and Other Testaments of Achievement, Communications, Spaceflight, Astronautics, and Astronomy, 1960s, Europe, Nineteenth Century

Raising a Perfect Wife From Scratch

Sabrina Sidney, was a British foundling girl taken in when she was 12 by author Thomas Day, who wanted to mould her into his perfect wife. Day had been struggling to find a wife who would share his ideology and had been rejected by several women. Inspired by Jean-Jacques Rousseau's book Emile, or On Education, he decided to educate two girls without any frivolities, using his own concepts.

In 1769, Day and his barrister friend, John Bicknell, chose Sidney and another girl, Lucretia, from orphanages, and falsely declared they would be indentured to Day's friend Richard Lovell Edgeworth. Day took the girls to France to begin Rousseau's methods of education in isolation. After a short time, he returned to Lichfield with only Sidney, having deemed Lucretia inappropriate for his experiment. He used unusual, eccentric, and sometimes cruel, techniques to try to increase her fortitude, such as firing blanks at her skirts, dripping hot wax on her arms, and having her wade into a lake fully dressed to test her resilience to cold water.

Posted By: Paul - Tue May 07, 2019 - Comments (0)
Category: Eccentrics, Education, Husbands, Wives, Eighteenth Century, Nineteenth Century, Love & Romance

Schenck’s Mandrake Pills

Posted By: Paul - Tue Apr 23, 2019 - Comments (2)
Category: Patent Medicines, Nostrums and Snake Oil, Nineteenth Century, Twentieth Century

The Seminal Pastille

Posted By: Paul - Wed Apr 10, 2019 - Comments (3)
Category: Patent Medicines, Nostrums and Snake Oil, Nineteenth Century, Genitals

Victorian Lady in Her Boudoir

Posted By: Paul - Sat Mar 30, 2019 - Comments (0)
Category: Fashion, Movies, Sexuality, Sex Symbols, Nineteenth Century

Stedman Whitwell’s Rational System of Nomenclature

Whitwell noted some of the incongruities in American nomenclature, and deplored the repetition which was producing “Washingtons” and “Springfields” in every state in the Union. He proposed to give each locality a distinctive name by expressing in a compound word the latitude and longitude of the place, thus enabling one to locate any community geographically when the name was once known. Letters were proposed as substitutes for the numerals used in expressing latitude and longitude, as follows:



The first part of the town name expressed the latitude, the second the longitude, by a substitution of letters for figures according to the above table. The letter “S” inserted in the latitude name denoted that it was south latitude, its absence that it was north, while “V” indicated west longitude, its absence east longitude.

Extensive rules for pronunciation and for overcoming various difficulties were given. According to this system, Feiba Peveli indicated 38.11 N., 81.53 W. Macluria, 38.12 N., 87.52 W., was to be called Ipad Evenle; New Harmony, 38.11 N., 87.55 W., Ipba Veinul; New Yellow Springs, Green county, Ohio, the location of an Owenite community, 39.48 N., 83.52 W., Irap Evifle; Valley Forge, near Philadelphia, where there was another branch community, 40.7 N., 75.25 W., Outeon Eveldo; Orbiston, 55.34 N., 4.3 W., Uhi Ovouti; New York, Otke Notive; Pittsburg, Otfu Veitoup; Washington, Feili Neivul; London, Lafa Vovutu.

The principal argument in favor of the new system presented by the author was that the name of a neighboring Indian chief, “Occoneocoglecococachecachecodungo,” was even worse than some of the effects produced by this “rational system” of nomenclature.

Posted By: Alex - Wed Mar 20, 2019 - Comments (4)
Category: Geography and Maps, Odd Names, Nineteenth Century

Caloric Vita Oil

Posted By: Paul - Fri Mar 15, 2019 - Comments (1)
Category: Business, Advertising, Patent Medicines, Nostrums and Snake Oil, Nineteenth Century

Hostetter’s Bitters

Hostetter's "Celebrated" Bitters was a nostrum developed by Dr. Jacob Hostetter of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. His son, David Hostetter, put the formula into large scale production in 1853 and it soon became a national best-seller. During the Civil War, Dr. J. Hostetter's Stomach Bitters was sold to soldiers as "a positive protective against the fatal maladies of the Southern swamps, and the poisonous tendency of the impure rivers and bayous." The original formula was about 47% alcohol -- 94 Proof! The amount of alcohol was so high that it was served in Alaskan saloons by the glass. Hostetter sweetened the alcohol with sugar to which he added a few aromatic oils (anise, coriander, etc.) and vegetable bitters (cinchona, gentian, etc.) to give it a medicinal flavor. From 1954 to 1958, when it was no longer marketed, the product was known as Hostetter Tonic.

Posted By: Paul - Thu Feb 21, 2019 - Comments (3)
Category: Antiques, Anachronisms and Throwbacks, Advertising, Patent Medicines, Nostrums and Snake Oil, Nineteenth Century, Twentieth Century, Alcohol