Mystery Gadget 45

Why is this man inside a steel cylinder?

The answer is here.

And after the jump.



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Posted By: Paul - Tue Mar 21, 2017 - Comments (4)
Category: Technology, 1900s

Husband Wields Occult Powers

September 1909: Mrs. Christina Brown of Elgin, Illinois filed for divorce from her husband on the grounds that he was a wizard who wielded occult powers, compelling her to do things against her will, such as:

• Sitting for hours in one chair while he controlled her thoughts as well as actions without touch or word.
• Revealing the choicest bits of neighborhood gossip, no matter how solemnly she had sworn to keep them a secret.
• Telling him what she really thought of him, despite her effort to pretend that he was the only man in the world.
• Admitting that she didn't believe his fish stories.
• Confessing that she had cooked up the oldest and poorest food in the house when he brought a friend home to dinner unexpectedly.
• Purchasing a hat and gown at the cheapest store in town when she had fully intended to buy them at a more expensive establishment.

The Alexandria Times-Tribune - Sep 6, 1909

Posted By: Alex - Thu Jan 05, 2017 - Comments (1)
Category: Divorce, 1900s

Crook, the Unkissed

Algie R. Crook (or "Alja" Crook, as his name was sometimes spelled) was a professor of mineralogy at Chicago's Northwestern University. His great claim to fame, however, had nothing to do with science. Instead, it was that in April, 1901 he allegedly told his undergraduate class that he had never kissed a woman. More specifically, he reportedly said, "I have never uttered a profane word, never have smoked or chewed tobacco, drank intoxicants, nor hugged or kissed a woman."

Given that he was thirty-seven years old at the time, this was considered a remarkable admission. So remarkable that when word of it leaked to the press it became international news.

Great Falls Tribune - May 15, 1901

The media started referring to him as "Crook, The Unkissed." Acquaintances of Crook (or people who claimed to be his acquaintances) readily confirmed the tale, attributing his lack of kisses to his embrace of "austere science." One said, "the scientific atmosphere is inimical to the love germ."

Offers of marriage flooded in, from women hoping to be the one to thaw the professor's icy reserve.

Philadelphia Times - Apr 28, 1901

The French were particularly taken with the story. As reported in the Leavenworth Times (May 8, 1901):


Supposedly the news even reached as far as China where the dowager empress expressed a desire to see him.

Philadelphia Inquirer - Apr 27, 1901

Crook, for his part, was said to be "abashed and humiliated over the gossip the affair has provoked," and also furious at the "tattling undergraduates."

He issued a denial of the allegation, stating, "I have never told any one that I have refrained from hugging or kissing women, for the reason that I consider it nobody's business but my own."

He recalled having advised a student to do as he did — never to kiss, hug, swear, and so forth. And he figured that's how the story must have started. But he insisted that he hadn't said that he had never done these things at all.

However, it was too late. The story was out there and couldn't be taken back. His denial got buried in the back pages of newspapers, if it was printed at all.

In other interviews, Crook asserted that he had kissed female family members, which didn't help his case much since it implied that he had indeed never romantically kissed a woman. Also, a former student recalled that Crook had made similar claims before, noting, "He is a consistent Methodist, and his convictions sometimes cause him some trouble." So I kind of suspect that Crook really did make the no-kissing claim to his class, but denied it later out of embarrassment.

Whatever the case may have been, the tale continued to haunt him. The following year (1902) a group of students at Northwestern formed an "Anti-osculation Society," claiming that they were "following the teachings of Professor Algie R. Crook, the man who never was kissed." They elected him an honorary member.

In 1904 Crook got married, and inevitably this triggered a renewal of the no-kissing story. "Unkissed Man To Wed," reported the papers.

The Hutchinson News - Dec 28, 1904

Crook and his wife eventually had five children together. He died in 1930, at the age of sixty-six, and the kissing story resurfaced in his Chicago Tribune obituary (June 1, 1930). It was, after all, the achievement he was most famous for:


However, the memorial of him in the Journal of the Mineralogical Society of America omitted the kissing story. Nor is it mentioned on the wikipedia page about him.

Posted By: Alex - Wed Dec 21, 2016 - Comments (3)
Category: Eccentrics, Science, 1900s, Love & Romance

The Littlest Maniac

Original article here.

Posted By: Paul - Sat Dec 03, 2016 - Comments (4)
Category: Children, 1900s, Brain Damage

Wiggle Stick

Wiggle Stick, used for bluing fabrics, was marketed heavily in the early 20th century. The name made some kind of sense, since it was a stick that you wiggled around in the water. But the ads with the women riding on top of a giant wiggle stick made it pretty clear that the name could be interpreted in more than one way.

Chicago Daily Tribune - Jan 6, 1904

Posted By: Alex - Tue Oct 25, 2016 - Comments (7)
Category: Advertising, 1900s

Mystery Gadget 41

What is the output of this machine?

The answer is here.

Posted By: Paul - Mon Oct 10, 2016 - Comments (11)
Category: Technology, 1900s