These old magazines are full of devices for improving women’s appearance. 90% of them are completely useless, and some are even dangerous. Here are a few of my favorites:
MACHINE MEASURES BEAUTY OF FACE
According to the article this machine, designed by Max Factor, will measure the beauty of a woman’s face. I’m not really sure how that’s supposed to work, but the picture looks like a scene right out of a Frankenstein meets Hellraiser movie. Here’s another article that provides different view of this instrument of torture beauty.
Woman Invents Dimple Machine
I guess this would work. If you consider annoying red welts to be dimples.
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Double-Barrel Cigarette Holder
First up, we have this double-barrel cigarette holder. Makes perfect sense, right? You’ve got two lungs, gotta have two cigarettes. Of course if you used this I don’t think you’d have two lungs for very long…
Whole Cigarette Factory Contained in Single Tobacco Can
I’m not entirely sure that’s tobacco he’s rolling up there.
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One of the things you notice when reading these old magazines is that liability law did not really seem to exist in the first half of the century. Some of the activities and devices promoted by these magazines are just plain dangerous. We’ve covered crazy schemes to give city kids fresh air by hanging them out of apartment windows, playground equipment that seems designed to crack heads open, electric baths and children’s car seats that look like they’ll catapult the child through the windshield. Modern Mechanix in particular seemed to love publishing ingenious ways to drown yourself. Here are a few of my favorites:
Cooky Jar Diving Bell
These two brothers both made homemade diving helmets. Their first model used a water tank and their second, designed to increase visibility, used their mother’s pilfered cooky jar.
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