Category:
1930s

Shocking Presentation

Just to prove that B. F. Skinner was not the only guy who could do operant conditioning, Willard Hayes Yeager decided to teach his student to speak better in public by the use of electric shocks.

You can read his textbook here.




Teachers shock students at George Washington U. Washington, D.C., Aug. 2. Public speaking students at G.W. U. are only too well acquainted with the shocking machine, invented by Dr. Willard Hayes Yeager, Head of the department, to take the "ahs" "ers" and "ums" out of their diction. He is shown putting on the shocker to Jane Hampton, 17. When the student makes a mistake the professor at the other end of the room, notifies her by a gentle electric shock.

Posted By: Paul - Fri Dec 08, 2023 - Comments (1)
Category: Education, Sadism, Cruelty, Punishment, and Torture, Rhetoric, Eloquence, Public Speaking, and Vocabulary, 1930s

Man insists he’s in perfect health, then drops dead

Nov 1939: John H. Mills, 70, appeared before the city board of education to plead for his old job back. Insisted he was in perfect health. Then dropped dead.

Sounds like a heart attack, probably triggered by the stress of the situation.

Roanoke World News - Nov 14, 1939



Los Angeles Daily News - Nov 16, 1939

Posted By: Alex - Sun Oct 08, 2023 - Comments (1)
Category: Death, 1930s

Anna Monaro, The Illuminated Woman

Source for clipping: Redwood City Tribune (Redwood City, California) 23 Apr 1934, Mon Page 6



Read the whole tale here.

(Free membership at Medium required.)


Posted By: Paul - Sat Oct 07, 2023 - Comments (0)
Category: Human Marvels, 1930s, Women, Europe

The Chimpomat

In one of our recent posts, there was a reference to the Chimpomat, a token-operated vending machine for chimpanzees created at the Yerkes Laboratories in the 1930s. Here's more info about it.

"Subject Kambi is shown about to drop a token into the slot of the chimpomat to 'purchase' food."



Info from The Ape People (1971) by Geoffrey H. Bourne:

The Yerkes Laboratories eventually developed a device known as a Chimpomat. This Chimpomat would receive either metal or plastic disks and would dispense some form of food reward in return for the insertion of a disk. Animals were eventually taught to pull the box of weights up to the cage in return for plastic or metal disks which they could then take and put in the Chimpomat to get their reward.

By the process of lengthening the time between which they could earn the reward and when they could actually receive it by using the Chimpomat (by making the Chimpomat available only certain times of the day), the animals could be trained to collect plastic disks, in other words, to work for money. They would store up this money until the time came for them to spend it. Eventually they were trained to earn the money one day and spend it in the Chimpomat the following day.

On these occasions the animals used to walk around clutching their earnings to their breasts, sleeping on them at night so they would not be stolen, and getting very hysterical if any other animal came near their earnings or tried to take any of them away—a very human side of their actuvity and the dawn of ownership of private property and capitalism, a thought that has intriguing implications.

Posted By: Alex - Mon Oct 02, 2023 - Comments (1)
Category: Animals, Science, 1930s

Whole brain not needed for handling money

Mention to any friends who are bankers or accountants that science has shown they could have a frontal lobotomy and still do their job, and see how they react.

Click to enlarge

Posted By: Alex - Mon Sep 04, 2023 - Comments (0)
Category: Money, Experiments, Psychology, 1930s

9 is heavier than 6

All you perpetual-motion skeptics, just try to argue against the logic of this!

Twelve discs on wheel bear "number 6," which is visible on right side, but which becomes "9" on left. The "9" being heavier, upsets balance, turning wheel.


Los Angeles Daily News - Sep 19, 1931

Posted By: Alex - Sat Aug 26, 2023 - Comments (2)
Category: Inventions, 1930s

Anti-Bulbsnatcher Device

This post is partially a tribute to the end of the incandescent bulb, after its long and glorious reign.

For many years, GE conducted an ad campaign to discourage people from moving lightbulbs around from one fixture to another in a lazy manner, instead of always having a closetful of replacement bulbs. If only GE had invested in the patent which follows these ads, for a device that would not allow a bulb to be unscrewed with breaking it.







Full patent here.





Posted By: Paul - Tue Aug 22, 2023 - Comments (0)
Category: Domestic, Inventions, Patents, Technology, 1930s

Scale in Soda-Fountain Seat

Watch your weight increase as you eat.

Popular Science - Dec 1938

Posted By: Alex - Sat Aug 12, 2023 - Comments (0)
Category: Inventions, 1930s, Dieting and Weight Loss

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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.

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