Vibrators: Inspiring Action since 1880

As a writer of historical fiction, I spend a lot of time researching, and I especially adore vintage ads.

Occasionally I come across something that I wasn't looking for but is so fascinating I get completely sidetracked and lose an hour amusing myself with it.

No pun intended. :)

Here's what got me today--an ad for Vigor's Horse-Action Saddles.

Just look at all the benefits for Victorian women...

A "UNIQUE SUBSTITUTE" for horse riding--you can trot, canter, and gallop, and you don't even have to leave the house! You can ride right there, next to your potted fern! (Sidesaddle, of course.)

It brings "all the VITAL ORGANS into INSPIRING ACTION!" So inspiring, even the Princess of Wales was "completely satisfied." If it's good enough for royal rumps, it's surely good enough for yours. :)

It was, of course, an early vibrator, which was marketed to women for at-home use to cure their "hysteria." Prior to 1880, when the first electromechanical forebear to the Magic Wand was patented, women used to see their doctors for hysteria--they were treated with "physician-assisted paroxysm," or as women would later call it, an O.

Go figure, the doctors were swamped with patients who wanted their "mid-quarters" massaged and couldn't keep up. Hand cramps, you know. So to combat this "chronic hand fatigue," doctors sought mechanical intervention.

Enter Dr. Joseph Mortimer Granville, who invents the vibrator in 1880 (before the electric iron or vacuum cleaner) and effectively puts doctors treating hysteria out of O business.

The early ads tried to disguise what they were selling, but it was pretty obvious. 

According to one source, these kinds of ads disappeared about the same time that movies became popular (the 1920s). Apparently, once men saw these devices being used in stag movies (such a great old phrase), they realized that mechanical contraption in the hall closet wasn't really just a newfangled hair dryer.

Not to mention that electric saddle in the parlor... ;)

Cheers!

Melanie

Flapper Friday: Condom Crazy

This is one of those history lessons we didn't get in school.

A lovely reader who just finished an ARC of SPEAK EASY emailed me about a scene where Enzo retrieves a condom from his coat pocket. (It is a favorite scene of mine.)

She was curious about the accuracy of this--did such a thing exist in the 1920s?

Why, yes!

I admit that when I was writing the scene, I looked it up to make sure (that's the downside of writing hot scenes in historical settings--you have to stop and look things up...more on that another time).

But here are Five Fun Things about Condom History.

1) According to Salon.com, "The oldest condoms ever found were dug up in the cesspit — or big toilet — of Dudley Castle, an English ruin, in 1985. Made of fish and animal intestine, the condoms were most likely dropped into the cesspit sometime in the mid 17th century."

Animal skin condom c. 1900

Fascinating. And yet disgusting.

2) The first rubber condoms were produced in the mid-19th century, and they only covered the tip--men had to be measured by a doctor for a proper fit, and even then they'd fall off during use (go figure). Pretty soon rubber manufacturers figured out that full-length one-size-fits-all condoms would sell like mad in pharmacies.

Genius!

3) Condom use got a big boost during World War I because they prevented soldier deaths from  STD's like syphilis. However, the U.S. military, under pressure from "purity advocates," was the only force not to supply its troops with condoms. Way to go, Uncle Sam!

4) In 1918, condoms began to be publicly, legally sold to Americans for the first time in forty-five years. Through the 1920s, catchy names and slick packaging became an increasingly important marketing technique for many consumer items, including condoms.

I like to think Enzo used Three Sheik. ;)

5) Margaret Sanger held the First American Birth Control Conference in November 1921 in New York City. Condom sales doubled worldwide in the 1920s!

Yay Margaret!

So, yes...we may not like to think about our great-grandparents in terms of pre-marital sex or Three Ramses condoms, but there it is!

Have a safe weekend. ;)

Cheers!

Flapper Friday -- How Did They Get That GLOW?

Glowing Gloria Swanson

Ever wonder how those classic Hollywood screen starlets got their glowing complexions? Why the leading men appeared so virile? 

Easy-peasy. Radioactivity!

Within two years of its discovery, doctors, inventors, and cosmetics companies were singing the praises of radium's healing properties and energy-boosting powers. It was called a "revolutionary beauty secret."

This ad for Radior Toilet Requisites from 1918 claims, "The tiniest particle of Radium throws off a stream of Energy Rays. An energy never diminishing, never ceasing, day or night, year in, year out. A force a million times more powerful than any other known."

Our great-grandflappers and sheiks said, "Swell! What can we do with it besides rub it in our faces?"

How about drink it!

Don't worry. It's totally certified.

Radithor, made from 1918 to 1928, contained triple distilled water and radium. It was said to "cure stomach cancer, mental illness, and restore sexual vigor." (I bet industrialist Eben Byers, who boasted drinking a bottle a day for four years, was a real tiger before his cancerous jaw bone disintegrated.)

Or insert it in your derriere!

15 Day Course Vita Radium Suppositories: Recommended for "sexually weak men," these miracle missiles would "bombard every tissue, every organ with health-giving electric atoms." 

Truly, I had to stare at this picture really hard to understand it.

Weak in the glands? Want to be e a "REAL MAN" again?  Stage a "comeback" with Radium! 

Last but certainly not least, apply it to your scrotum!

Here we have the Scrotal Radiendocrinator. 

Simply wear it under the scrotum at night like an athletic supporter for increased sexual virility--what could be easier? (It even comes with its own little velvet-lined case for modesty.) 

Wait a minute...Could this be Gideon Cross's secret???

If Eva's ladyparts start glowing, WE KNOW.

Vintage Ad Fun with Listerine

One of the most popular series of posts on an old blog I had was Vintage Ad Fun, so I thought I'd resurrect it here for your amusement. The first installment is brought to you by the miracle that is Listerine.

Are you unpopular?

It might be your "unexcusable" bad breath.

But don't worry. You can instantly halt halitosis with Listerine.

In fact, the "pleasant-tasting germicide" is so powerful, it can combat a cold, dandruff, or perspiration, and it provides cool, refreshing exhilaration after a shave.

Perhaps most miraculous of all? It will help lonely women catch and keep a man!

Your foxtrot is divine, Rose. But what's that evil smell about Helen?

Although some sources claim Listerine ad men invented the term "halitosis," its origins date back to 1874, five years before a doctor from Missouri invented Listerine as a surgical antiseptic. Dentists began using it for oral care in 1895, and it was first sold over the counter in 1914.

But Listerine wasn't going to sell itself. First the company had to tell America it had a problem; only then would the cure be indispensable.

The fun really started in the 1920s with the halitosis ad campaigns.

My fave. So sad.

"How wise is the woman who realizes the importance of keeping the breath always sweet, wholesome and agreeable! After all, nothing mars a personal relationship like halitosis (bad breath) whether occasional or habitual." 

I love the word "wholesome" here, as if a woman's breath implies something about her character.

Sales of Listerine skyrocketed. And what's interesting--yet not surprising--about the halitosis angle is how all these ads appear to be aimed at women, and it's not just because women did the shopping. There were ads targeting men too, but they took a different approach.

Use Listerine after shaving. Or else.

"Feel well and keep well" is very different message than threatening a woman with everlasting loneliness due to her breath. Basically, a man might end up temporarily sick or infected if he does not use Listerine, but a woman might fail to catch and/or keep a man forever. 

Even worse, the man she thought she had might--GASP--leave her and marry her friend!

It's bad enough when you don't get asked to dance, but when your fiance of two years leaves you because of your breath...

Your mission is clear.

Gargle. The men will flock.