Portable Darkroom Hood — 1924
What looks like a ghostly apparition was, in fact, a handy-dandy rubberized portable darkroom with which one could drape oneself whilst processing photographic plates. Read more….
Science/Technology
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…
“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.
