Nineteenth Century
The Cat Hat of Kate Fearing Strong
In 1883, William and Alva Vanderbilt spent $250,000 to throw a fancy dress ball. That's the equivalent of around $6 million in today's money. The most memorable outfit was worn by Kate Fearing Strong. Her nickname was 'Puss', so she came dressed as a cat. As reported by the New York Times:
New York Times - Mar 27, 1883
The cats on her dress and hat were real cats — skinned and taxidermied.
More info: "Vanderbilt Ball: How a costume ball changed New York elite society"
Kate Fearing Strong wearing her cat hat
Posted By: Alex - Mon Sep 30, 2024 -
Comments (4)
Category: Headgear, Cats, Nineteenth Century
Heraldry of Fish
All that you'd ever want to know about fish, as they pertain to heraldry.Available to read via archive.org.
Posted By: Alex - Sun Sep 15, 2024 -
Comments (1)
Category: Signage, Fish, Books, Nineteenth Century
Follies of the Madmen #604
"No more washee, washee! Melican man wear celluloid collar and cuff!"
Posted By: Paul - Thu Aug 29, 2024 -
Comments (1)
Category: Fashion, Stereotypes and Cliches, Advertising, Asia, Nineteenth Century
The Cellular Cosmogony
Here's your chance to learn the truth: that we are all living inside the Earth, rather than on top of its surface.The Wikipedia page for Koresh, aka Cyrus Teed.
Posted By: Paul - Thu Jul 18, 2024 -
Comments (4)
Category: Eccentrics, Frauds, Cons and Scams, New Age, Spaceflight, Astronautics, and Astronomy, Nineteenth Century
The Smoking Baby of Trenton
Winfield Doran gained famed as the "smoking baby of Trenton." He started smoking a pipe when he was seven months old. Because his parents were worried about the health effects of this, they eventually persuaded him to smoke cigars instead. But he refused to smoke cigarettes.He died of diptheria when he was four years old.
Canton Independent Sentinel - Aug 14, 1890
Quincy Daily Ledger - Nov 11, 1890
Posted By: Alex - Thu Jul 11, 2024 -
Comments (0)
Category: Babies and Toddlers, Children, Smoking and Tobacco, Nineteenth Century
An inglorious Columbus : or, Evidence that Hwui Shn and a party of Buddhist monks from Afghanistan discovered America in the fifth century, A.D
Why waste your red paint and enmity on statues of Columbus, when it was really the Chinese who discovered America?Read it here.
Posted By: Paul - Sun Jun 30, 2024 -
Comments (4)
Category: Explorers, Frontiersmen, and Conquerors, Fables, Myths, Urban Legends, Rumors, Water-Cooler Lore, Asia, North America, Nineteenth Century
Unlikely Reasons for Murder No. 18
Posted By: Paul - Sat Jun 15, 2024 -
Comments (2)
Category: Death, Europe, United Kingdom, Nineteenth Century
Tooth Cap
The Southwark Heritage art museum has a nineteenth-century tooth cap in its collection. It offers this description:
If the cap looks like something you'd like to own, the website toothantique.com claims to be selling them. Newly made tooth caps, not nineteenth-century originals. They're asking only $100. For that price they say you get a cap "Decorated With 40 Real Human Teeth, Drilled And Attached With Twine."
Are they really selling these caps? I'm somewhat doubtful. The picture of their product is the same picture that's on the Southwark Heritage site. But I'm not curious enough to spend $100 to find out what would arrive in the mail.
Posted By: Alex - Fri May 31, 2024 -
Comments (1)
Category: Headgear, Nineteenth Century, Teeth
Presidential Songs and Slogans
In this election year, we could do with some innovative songs and slogans--but I doubt if we'll get any that compare to these historical ones.Taken from THE BOOK OF POLITICAL LISTS.
Posted By: Paul - Mon May 20, 2024 -
Comments (5)
Category: Music, Politics, Proverbs, Maxims, Sayings, Folk Wisdom and Quotations, Nineteenth Century, Twentieth Century
Helmbold’s Extract of Buchu
Read all about the herb buchu and its medicinal merchandising here.One of the most (in)famous protagonists was Henry T. Helmbold (1826–1892), who started his patent medicine business in 1846 as a retail druggist with “Helmbold’s Extract Buchu—cures diabetes, gravel, brick-dust deposits, irritations of the bladder and diseases arising from exposure or imprudence, etc.” and other medicines. He opened his first store in Philadelphia in 1850, the largest and best-known in New York in 1862. By 1865 Helmbold’s buchu was the bestselling patent medicine on the US market. For this, he spent enormous amounts of money on advertising, mostly in newspapers: ∼US$ 500,000 (about 10 million US$ today) each for the years 1869–71. For the distribution of his products, Helmbold had his own 4c postage stamp (Figure 4) (The Historian, 1912; Young, 1961).
The Hottentot ad is for Helmsbold's product. It has three more pages, viewable here.
Posted By: Paul - Fri May 10, 2024 -
Comments (2)
Category: Patent Medicines, Nostrums and Snake Oil, Africa, Nineteenth Century
| Who We Are |
|---|
| Alex Boese 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. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1. Contact Us |