This image, from the cover of the July 19, 1924 issue of Radio World, shows Martha Breesh and Edna Jameson dancing on the beach at Atlantic City. According to the magazine, the two attractive vacationists are doing a Nymph-like dance on the beach, to the tune of a fox trot coming over the radio. Miss Breesh and Miss Jameson report that health and beauty depend on judicious exercise, and that they rate beach dancing to radio music as the apex of judiciousness.
This artist’s conception of a flying machine of the 20th Century, known as an aeronon, was originally published in 1879. It is reprinted in The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine in 1908.
80 years ago, this was the latest in metal detectors. This unit, shown in the August 1934 issue of Radio Craft magazine, is similar in concept, but larger in size, to inexpensive metal detectors available today. It consisted of a one-tube oscillator along with a five-tube receiver. When the oscillator’s coil came in proximity to metallic objects, the frequency shifted, and the change in frequency could be determined from the receiver. The oscillator is mounted in one cabinet, with the receiver in the other.
The complete plans were in the magazine, which also reported that the unit could be purchased commercially. It was reported as being sufficiently sensitive to detect a piece of metal 16 inches square at a depth of 15 feet.
A hundred years ago today, the Washington Times of August 23, 1914, shows these scouts at Camp Archibald Butt, a camp operated by the Baltimore and Washington councils of the BSA between 1914 and 1916.
The scouts are identified as E.L. Maschmeyer, Mitchell Carroll, King Ridgeway, Paul Grove, George Read, Elwood Hannsman, and Randolph Carroll.
The scout second to the right is presumably the same Elwood Hannsman who went on in 1936 to secure U.S. Patent No. 2031830 for the windshield cleaner shown here. Mr. Hannsman was also issued U.S. Patents 2268072 for a direct reading gauge (1941) and 2100188 (1937) for another windshield cleaner. The assignee of all three patents was the Stewart-Warner Corporation of Chicago, which was presumably Mr. Hannsman’s employer.
And at some point, it would appear that Stewart-Warner sent Mr. Hannsman to law school, since he is listed as one of the attorneys for Stewart-Warner in a number of cases, including
Jiffy Lubricator Co. V. Stewart-Warner Corp., 177 F.2d 360 (4th Cir. 1949).
He was a member of the ABA Section of Patent Trade-Mark and Copyright Law. He was the Chairman of the Patent Sub-Section at the time of his death in 1954. (ABA Journal, June 1954).
Seventy-five years ago today, only a quarter century after the start of the First World War, the Second was falling into place. Today, August 22, 1939, the papers were reporting the non-aggression pact between between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, that German guns were moving toward the Polish border, and that the Nazis considered the “dispute over Danzig as won.”
Almost a month into the war, photos are now starting to appear in American papers. Of course, war reporting a hundred years ago was not an instantaneous affair, especially when it came to photojournalism. Every photo in an American paper had to cross the Atlantic by steamer before publication.
This photo, from an Arizona paper, shows a German pontoon bridge, probably in Belgium. The caption notes that the destruction of bridges in Belgium and France did little to slow the advancing German troops, since German engineers carried the materials to quickly construct bridges such as this one.
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German station at Sayville, Long Island, allowed back on the air.
A hundred years ago today, August 21, 1914, President Wilson resolved the issue of use of wireless stations in U.S. territory by the warring nations. After protests from Germany, whose cable had been cut and had only wireless contact with Germany, it was decided that the warring nations would be permitted to send coded messages from their stations in the U.S.
Largely because of the practical impossibility, there would be no censorship of cable traffic on the remaining transatlantic cables.
As noted here earlier, it was Hiram Percy Maxim who brought to the government’s attention the German’s transmission of coded messages.
Among the newspapers carrying the report was the 22 August 1914 edition of the New York Tribune.
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Vegetation on Neptune (artist’s conception).
This 1914 drawing (an artist’s conception) depicts the vegetation supposed to exist on the planet Neptune. The latest spectrographic evidence suggested the presence of chlorophyll on all of the planets. Surprisingly, “the farther the planet from the sun, the more luxuriant the vegetation.” Accordingly, Neptune contains the lush growth shown here.
The illustration and accompanying text can be found in the April 11, 1914, issue of The Illustrated London News. The article cites the work of Professor Percival Lowell.
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In 1919, Woodrow Wilson stated, “I can predict with absolute certainty that within another generation there will be another world war if the nations of the world do not concert the method by which to prevent it.”
It turned out to be less than a generation. On this day a hundred years ago, the First World War was well under way.
And only 25 years later, 75 years ago today, this headline, from the Milwaukee Journal of August 20, 1939, shows that Wilson’s prophecy was about to come true. It turned out that this wasn’t the week. It would be eleven more days until Germany invaded Poland, marking the start of the Second World War.
