It Seemed Like A Good Idea Part 3

Radioactive Beauty Products

Asbestos

DDT

Live Baby Alligators As Pets

Unicorn Horns for Cats

Parakeet Diapers

Rent-a-Toupee

I mean, if you're going to rent your hair, you may as well buy this.

Lead

"Here Come The Judge" Pigmeat Markham (1968)

Whether or not this is the very first ever true rap song, a jury of hip-hop scholars will probably forever be out. But this is widely considered to be the earliest known prototype of the genre.

Dewey "Pigmeat" Markham (1904-1981) was a vaudeville comedian in the 1920s and '30s, later moving into acting and singing. He got the name "Pigmeat" from an early act of his, where he declared himself as "Sweet Poppa Pigmeat".

For decades, Markham's career was severely limited to only nightclubs and theatres that accepted black entertainers called the "Chitlin' Circuit", as Jim Crow racism and segregation was still dominant in every aspect of American life in those days. He was little known among white audiences until the 1960s when Pigmeat Markham released several comedy albums that crossed over. 

Sammy Davis Jr. performed the "Here Come The Judge" act on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. The success of Sammy Davis Jr.'s rendition of Markham's act later got Markham himself a deal to appear on Laugh-In for one season. The success of which spawned this single, which made it to #19 on the Billboard Top 40 charts in 1968.

1921 Kurtzmann Glass Phonograph

The 1921 Kurtzmann Glass Phonograph was the hipster audio freak's must-have long before Bang & Olufsen. It played vertical cut discs of the Edison/Pathe variety. But could be modified to play lateral cut gramophone records with the use of an attachment to the tone arm.

And they're still very classy looking.

And in the days before electrical recording, vertical cut discs were sonically best for acoustic recording than conventional lateral cut gramophone records. A suddenly loud passage could cut through the wall of a lateral cut groove, so the singer had to stand back from the recording horn or the horn had to be muffled to protect the groove wall of the record being recorded. On a vertical cut groove, it only makes a deeper groove.

The teak horn inside was perfect for acoustically recorded records, Not brassy or tinnier than it had to be with conventional gramophone horns. Or boxy like Victrolas.  

They're extremely rare today.

The Coon Chicken Inn: The WORST Restaurant Chain In History

Uh-oh, we now see the shameful side of Seattle's otherwise awesome culinary history.

It's hard to believe a place with a name like The Coon Chicken Inn would ever have existed in polite, politically correct Seattle. But in the pre-Civil Rights era, such things were not uncommon anywhere. Including Portland, OR and Salt Lake City, UT, when The Coon Chicken Inn had other locations.

And this place made Sambo's look modest.

They opened in 1925 and within a few years, drew the wrath of the Seattle NAACP, who threatened to sue for defamation and libel. It's mascot was a grotesque, ugly caricature of a black porter (and perhaps the first ever mascot used by a restaurant chain, paving the way for Ronald McDonald four decades later.) And like Ronald McDonald at McDonalds, the porter mascot was everywhere at this place.

They actually made hand fans for kids (with menus on the back) in derogatory caricatures of African-Americans.

The porter caricature appeared on everything inside and out of the place. Including matchbooks, the dinnerware, silverware and even soap bars. They even made spare tire covers with the caricature on them.

Coast to Coast?....Er, no. They wish. But this chain never grew beyond a few locations in the Western half of the US.

  
From "AW HELL NO!!" to "W.....T......F???!!!" This was their actual Seattle location, circa 1939...

Image: BlackPast.org

Now look behind the labour union protesters (another problem with The Coon Chicken Inn.), behind that car to the caricature's mouth. Yes, this was the actual entryway. Every location had a similar entryway.

The Seattle and Portland locations closed in 1949, due to changing tastes and a shrinking customer base (one should hope so!) The Salt Lake City location carried on until 1957.

More on this place:
BlackPast.org
Wikipedia
University of Washington

More From The History's Dumpster Bookshelf...

Also see The History's Dumpster Bookshelf and Read Any Good Books?

 

Source: Regrettable Reads

The Phonograph Repeater

Watch a video of this thing here.

From the early 1900s, these were the very first automatic repeat gadgets for records. The needle would reach the end of a record (give or take a few seconds), then the needle would catch on the repeater and rotate it to the beginning of the record (again, give or take a few seconds)

The Geer Repeater

 More here.

The Strange and Mysterious History of the Ouija Board

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/The-Strange-and-Mysterious-History-of-the-Ouija-Board-229532101.html

Halloween Hits: "The Haunted House Blues" Bessie Smith (1924)

If there is one person who can rightfully claim to be the TRUE pioneer of rock n' roll, it's Bessie Smith.

She had attitude, she had an opinion and she had one hell of a voice. Her blues recordings are not only legendary, they've set the standard for all great blues singers to come. And her influence has spread far beyond the blues. Janis Joplin idolized her. So have contemporary stars like Melissa Etheridge, Bonnie Raitt and Susan Tedeschi. And for good reason - she opened the door for all strong, independent people in blues, pop, country R&B and rock music to come. And her influence reverberates to this day

But tragically, Bessie Smith never got the appreciation she really deserved in her life. In fact, in 1937 when she was in a horrific auto accident that claimed her life, her right arm was nearly severed and needed to be amputated. She died from blood loss. Bessie Smith's Wikipedia entry claims she did not die as a result of not being able to find a "coloured" hospital in time. I have a hard time believing that personally, as time was of the essence in such a life threatening injury. A closer "white" hospital could have saved her (and contrary to the "separate but equal" rule of Jim Crow, black hospitals were also grossly underfunded, under equipped and understaffed compared to the white hospitals - especially in the South.)

And to add to this injustice, she was buried in an unmarked grave and forgotten for decades until Janis Joplin personally bought a proper headstone.

Early Colour Film

If you never knew colour film existed this long ago, there's a reason.

The earliest movie film stock was made of cellulose nitrate. There were not many other materials that were feasible for film making. However cellulose nitrate had a couple horrifying drawbacks.
 
First, it was extremely volatile. If not stored under carefully controlled conditions, the film would deteriorate rapidly

Fact: 90% of all film before the late '40s is lost forever due to deterioration of their nitrate film .

If the film lamp was too hot, the entire reel would instantly burst into flames or even explode. And the fire/heat would ignite other film reels in the projection booth. This caused several theater fires.

So the early theater industry came up with a horrifying solution. Should the film catch fire (as sometimes did), some theaters had an automatic shut down mechanisms that would not only close the projector portholes, but also in some cases actually locked the projection booth door, incinerating the projectionist alive or suffocating him (it was usually men who were projectionists. Female projectionists were very rare) using them as a sacrifice to save the theater. Until safety film became standard in the 1950s, it was truly a dangerous job and only for the highly skilled.  

I volunteered as a projectionist at an old theater (and luckily, this was modern safety film I worked with) and I remember seeing the old portholes and the shut down doors above them. It truly is creepy. And those booths were HOT!