1920s
Miracle Dentistry
No need for dentists. Just pray away your tooth troubles!
Lloyd Bovee lived for over 50 more years. No mention of tooth problems in his obituary.
Posted By: Alex - Fri Apr 28, 2023 -
Comments (1)
Category: Religion, 1920s, Teeth
Symphony of Factory Sirens
I'm sure Khrushchev would have approved of this music, even if he didn't like it. I made it about two minutes in before I bailed.Info from 120 Years of Electronic Music:
More info from Sirens by Michael Bull:
Avraamov himself pursued a self-conscious course of social and economic liberation, which he perceived embodied all Russians since the October Revolution, in this ideology sirens were seen as an ideal replacement for church bells in the Russia of the 1920s as church bells were seen as bourgeois as against the industrial and proletarian sound of sirens.
Posted By: Alex - Mon Apr 24, 2023 -
Comments (2)
Category: Music, Industry, Factories and Manufacturing, 1920s
Will Rogers Nominates Henry Ford for President
The election season heats up!
Posted By: Paul - Mon Apr 17, 2023 -
Comments (0)
Category: Politics, Historical Figure, 1920s, Comedians, Cars
Rubber Beauty Mask
"the best time to slip it on is when nobody is looking, as its beauty is of the kind that frightens the neighbor's children."
Popular Science Monthly - Feb 1922
source: Wellcome Collection
A reference to rubber beauty masks in verse, from the poet Berton Braley:
Owensboro Messenger - Aug 26, 1916
Posted By: Alex - Thu Apr 13, 2023 -
Comments (1)
Category: Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Costumes and Masks, 1920s
The Making of An American
The immigrant's story: twas ever thus.
Posted By: Paul - Sun Mar 19, 2023 -
Comments (0)
Category: Emigrants, Immigrants and Borders, Ethnic Groupings, Jobs and Occupations, Languages, PSA’s, 1920s
Thirty Years Among the Dead
The Wikipedia page for Wickland, where we learn:Wickland turned away from conventional medical psychology and toward the belief that psychiatric illnesses were the result of influence by spirits of the dead. Wickland came to believe that a large number of his patients had become possessed by what he called "obsessing spirits", and that low-voltage electric shocks could dislodge them, while his wife Anna acted as a medium to guide them to "progress in the spirit world". Spiritualists considered him an authority on "destructive spirits" and he wrote a book in 1924, Thirty Years Among the Dead, detailing his experiences as a psychical researcher.[3]
Wickland was convinced that he was in contact with a group of spirits known as the "Mercy Band" who would remove the possessors, and help them in the spirit world. Psychologist Robert A. Baker listed Wickland and Arthur Guirdham as early psychiatrists who preferred to "ignore the science and embrace the supernatural".[4]
Read his book at the Internet Archive.
Posted By: Paul - Mon Mar 13, 2023 -
Comments (0)
Category: Death, Supernatural, Occult, Paranormal, Books, 1920s
Visit Gay’s Lion Farm
The Wikipedia page.A very detailed article on the place, with lots of photos.
Posted By: Paul - Thu Mar 02, 2023 -
Comments (0)
Category: Animals, Eccentrics, Hollywood, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s
FINNEGANS WAKE on Audio
Ease yourself into this famously baffling masterpiece by listening to Joyce himself proclaim a passage. Then queue up the whole book on your car's sound system for a relaxing commute!
Posted By: Paul - Thu Feb 23, 2023 -
Comments (0)
Category: Literature, Unexplained Historical Enigmas, 1920s, Cacophony, Dissonance, White Noise and Other Sonic Assaults
Miss America Gets a Permanent Wave
Norma Smallwood's victory in the 1926 Miss America contest was widely credited to her long, straight hair, which was widely admired. So it made news when she decided to get a permanent wave. It also made an unusual photo.Standing with her, below, was Charles Nessler, inventor of the permanent wave machine. (More info about him here.)
I haven't been able to find any photos showing what she looked like after getting the permanent wave. In fact, in all the later photos her hair still seems very straight. Perhaps she didn't like the result.
source: Library of Congress
Pittsburgh Press - Oct 17, 1926
Minneapolis Journal - Oct 3, 1926
Posted By: Alex - Fri Feb 17, 2023 -
Comments (1)
Category: 1920s, Hair and Hairstyling
Curing insane women by beauty treatments
I doubt this actually cured anyone, but as the article notes, it was certainly an improvement on the old way of treating mental illness.Rouge, powder, lipsticks, eyebrow pencils and all the other implements of artificial beauty are provided, so that the women can make up to their heart's content, regardless of the somewhat weird results sometimes obtained... It is a part of the system to let the "customer" direct her own beautification as much as is possible.
Pittsburgh Sun Telegraph - July 14, 1929
Click to Enlarge
Posted By: Alex - Tue Feb 14, 2023 -
Comments (3)
Category: Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, 1920s, Mental Health and Insanity
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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 |