How a Telephone Switchboard Works — 1911
Interested in a step-by-step illustrated tutorial on how a telephone call was completed in 1911, when operators were needed to place all calls? Look no further! Click to read more…
Science/Technology
“Bug Man” Testing For Radiation at the Hanford Plutonium Plant — 1956
Take a look at what the fashionable radiation detector was wearing in 1956 — it’s like something you’d see in a low-budget sci-fi movie: an ant-man in a jumpsuit, with antennae and a throat microphone. I’m not sure *I’d* feel confident wearing this in a “hot zone,” but it was apparently deemed safe by the Hanford plutonium plant (aka “the Hanford Site”) in Richland, Washington. Check it out.
Insert a Coin, Hear a Machine Squeal Like a Pig: 1897
One of the many creations of priest-inventor Father John Milo was this coin-operated pig which would squeal like a pig when you twisted its tail, measure your strength, dispense chewing gum, and play a ragtime ditty. Read more about Father Milo inside.
The Burroughs Adding Machine — 1929
A beautiful machine, a beautiful ad. “Easy to carry — speedy to operate.” See the full ad in the post.
The Tree Wireless — 1919
Using living trees as antennas was an important element of inventor Maj.-Gen George O. Squier’s system of telephony, which was developed for use during WWI as a way to intercept enemy messages which had been electrically transmitted, as well as to receive and transmit messages from just anywhere with a living tree nearby. More about Squier’s odd-sounding “tree wireless” inside.
“The Prairie Pirates”: Electric Steampunk in Texas — 1904
It’s lassoes vs. electric dynamite guns in this thrilling story of a crazy armored vehicle and a battle with masked desperadoes in Texas!
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Mulling the Possibility of Seances via Radio — 1922
In 1922, when radios were introduced to the general public, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle — the creator of Sherlock Holmes and a staunch believer in Spiritualism — donned headphones and experienced radio for the first time, in Atlantic City. He speculated that the new technology might be quite efficacious in communing with the dearly departed. More inside.
