The winner of the 1925 Miss Plump of Coney Island contest was Jolly Irene, which was the stage name of sideshow performer Amanda Siebert. According to
Marc Hartzman's American Sideshow:
Amanda Siebert wasn't always the jiggly Jolly Irene. Born in Jersey City, New Jersey, she was quite normal for the first twenty-one years of her life. In 1901 she weighed a respectable 120 pounds and gave birth to a child. Not only was a baby born, but because of a few glands gone awry, so was Jolly Irene.
The pounds piled up and the flesh got fleshier. Diets were ineffective, leaving her helpless against her newly acquired mass. One reporter later described her as having "biceps three times as large as Jack Dempsey." But at 620 pounds, rather than box the heavyweight champion, she turned her tragedy into profit by joining Ringling Bros.
Siebert died in 1940, at the age of 65.
Baltimore Sun - Aug 26, 1925
Central New Jersey Home News - Nov 20, 1925
Louisville Courier-Journal - Dec 1, 1940
What are these guys making?
The answer is here.
Or after the jump.
More in extended >>
While he was a grad student at the University of Chicago in the early 1920s, William Blatz was sitting in class one day, leaning back in his chair, when suddenly the chair collapsed beneath him, sending him sprawling backwards, crying out in fright. The experience was unsettling, but it gave him an idea for an unusual psychology experiment.
He designed a trick chair that would collapse backwards without warning when he flipped an electric switch. The chair was padded, so its occupant wouldn't get hurt. But Blatz figured that the sensation of abruptly, unexpectedly falling backwards would provoke a strong, measurable reaction in subjects. This would allow him to study the physiology of fear under controlled, repeatable conditions. He performed his experiment on a series of unsuspecting victims.
Diagram of Blatz's trick chair.
When the hook (A) at the top was released, the chair plunged backwards.
More in extended >>
Continuing our series of esthetic creations that would probably have displeased stern traditionalist Nikita Khrushchev.
About the artist.
No supernatural abilities actually required.
Original ad here.
Further information here.
An early example of the "teacher paid to do nothing" phenomenon. Nowadays we've got the
Rubber Room.
Portsmouth Daily Times - Jan 16, 1926
In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Scott Tissues ran an advertising campaign that sought to convince the American public that there was such a thing as 'Toilet Tissue Illness,' and that it was one of the great public health crises of the time. Toilet Tissue Illness was caused by using cheap toilet paper. It could lead to serious complications, possibly requiring rectal surgery to fix. So the ads suggested.
The most notorious ad in the campaign was the 'black glove' ad below.
Here's some background info about the Scott Tissue campaign from Richard Smyth's
Bum Fodder: An Absorbing History of Toilet Paper:
The image is stark: a clinically white sheet, an array of gleaming surgical instruments, and a hand, clad in a glove of thick black rubber. 'Often the only relief from toilet tissue illness,' the slogan reads (managing to suggest that 'toilet tissue illness' is a recognised medical condition). Consumers who managed to get past the photo and slogan without dropping everything and running for the high hills were then subjected to another lecture from the haemorrhoid-fixated Scott ad-men. It's the usual litany: 'Astonishing percentage of rectal cases ... traceable to inferior toilet paper ... protect your family's health ... eliminate a needless risk.' The words are so much prattle — but the image of the black rubber glove lingers in the mind. Following criticism from the American Medical Association, Scott eventually back-tracked on its doom-laden claims — but pledged to undertake trials in order to prove beyond dispute that 'improperly made toilet tissue is a menace to health'.
And a few of the other ads featured in the campaign: