The "Chatham" Vacuum Cleaner

Reader's Digest Association (Canada) Ltd.,  In Search of Canada.  Montreal, 1971.

Try finding a 10-year-old today who would be content to push and pull a lever for an hour at a time.

Willson Googles

Morris Fishbein, M.D.  Modern Home Medical Adviser.  Doubleday & Co., 1935, 1950.

Pictured above are Willson goggles.  Gile J. Willson and his son Dr. Thomas A. Willson founded Thomas A. Willson & Co. in 1871 in Reading, Pennsylvania.  Theirs was the first factory in the world to manufacture optical glass for lenses and reading glasses.  The company expanded into safety glasses in the early years of the last century, and is credited with starting the safety protection industry.  In 1929, they changed their name to Willson Goggles and then, in 1936, Willson Products.  During World War II, they made aviation goggles.  After the war they made sunglasses and swim googles, including those worn by Florence Chadwick, who in 1950 became the first woman to swim both directions of the English Channel.  The company was bought by Dalloz in 1989, and the Reading plant was closed in 2002.  It has since been re-purposed as the "GoggleWorks Center for the Arts."  I think "Goggleplex" would have been a neater name.

Canadian Indian

1916 Indian Model K Featherweight seen at the CVMG Paris meet. This motorcycle was assembled at the Hendee's Toronto facility on Mercer St. in Toronto.

Capetown harbour 1898

From the book Novascotiaman by Clement  W. Crowell, Nova Scotia Museum. 1979

Don't neglect to clean your TV screen!

The Practical Handyman's Encyclopedia.  Vol. 17.  New York:  Greystone Press, 1963.

TV and blatant sexism--who would've thought of such a combination?

BTW, the TV set in the photo is a Stewart-Warner model.  That company, best known for making automotive instruments,  began making radio sets in 1925.  It's TV set production ended in 1955. No wonder--it's certainly one of the ugliest sets I've ever seen.

  
The TV ad above is from a hilarious blog Phil Are Go:  Graphics, Design and Obsolete Technology from the Less-Pointy End of Time's Arrow.

The Wireless Club, 1920's

J. Arthur Thomson. (Ed.).  The Outline of Science.  A Plain Story Simply Told.  Third Volume. New York & London:  G.P. Putnam's Sons, The Knickerbocker Press, 1922.

Like Facebook, but with real people!

Sidecar Sunday

Photographed at the Wheels Through Time Museum

The Scamp, 1967

Britannica Book of the Year 1967.  Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 1967.

Apparently, its Lucas battery doomed it from the start.  Plus, it really wasn't very well engineered.

Midvale Steel Works, Philadelphia 1930

J.R. Lindbeck, M.W. Williams & R.M. Wygant.  Manufacturing Technology.  Englewood Cliffs, NY:  Prentice-Hall, 1990.

The Midvale Steel and Ordnance Company  of "Nicetown" in Philadelphia was founded William Butcher in 1867 but prospered under William Sellers, better known for his standardization of US screw and bolt threads.  In the 1870's, the company became a pioneer in the development of steel for large naval guns and armour plate.  In 1878, the firm hired Frederick Taylor who was to go on to become "the father of scientific management" and the development of high-speed tool steel.  After World War II, Midvale was progressive squeezed out by the larger Bethlehem and Carnegie steel works of Pittsburgh.  It closed for good in 1976.  According to Workshop of the World--Philadelphia:

"In 1970, the newly reorganized Midvale-Heppenstal Corporation began the systematic shutdown of the Nicetown plant; its eulogy was written by Scranton and Licht:   'The last to close of our four nineteenth-century Philadelphia plants, Midvale is soon to be demolished. For the moment, its massive forge hammers are still in place, but they will never again shake the earth with their power. Their silence leaves a bitter emptiness after a century of steel and sweat.'"

Polycarbonate vs Fibreglass helmets

Cycle Magazine 1971

 I don't remember this ad campaign, but this was a favorite trick of helmet salesmen back in the day. Take a demo cheapie polycarbonate helmet, fire it at the floor, catch it on the bounce then ask if the customer if really wanted to trust that in an accident. Then hand the customer the much more expensive Bell (fibreglass) helmet.