My look at some of the advertisements and products of yesteryear. Some weird and whacky, some surprisingly still around today. Here are their stories.
1927 - Kodascope
Kodascope is a name created by Eastman Kodak Company for the projector it placed on the market in 1923 as part of the first 16mm motion picture equipment. The original Kodascope was part of an outfit that included the Cine-Kodak camera, tripod, Kodascope projector, projection screen, and film splicer, all of which sold together for $335
Kodascope Library, which operated from 1924 to 1939, and offered both educational and commercially released films on 16mm film and, from 1932, on 8mm film.
One of the great silent movies, “The Lost World” became a victim of its own popularity and the death of silent films. In the late 1920s when 16mm was introduced, 'Kodascope' digest versions were made of some popular silent films, for the home movie market. The Lost World was one of the first. The full version of Lost World was junked, and only recently pieced together from some Czech copies.
1928 - Aspironal
The website Nostrumopia comments:
Aspironal was a purported cold remedy manufactured by Aspironal Laboratories in Atlanta, Georgia, around the period of 1919 to 1921. The name obviously played on the name of Aspirin, as the medicine, which was a liquid solution, contained a solution of sodium salicylate and other ingredients. Salicylates are compounds from which aspirin is derived.
The advertisements for the medicine claimed it was "better than whiskey" for the treatment of colds or flu. Of course, although whiskey can provide some relief from the symptoms of a cold, it is not a cure, by any means. Neither are salicylates or any of the other ingredients in the Aspironal. Although the labels claimed that the solution contained 10% alcohol, it probably contained much more.
When federal prohibition tool place in 1920, some states had already enacted their own prohibition laws. Druggists and patent medicine makers took advantage of a loophole that allowed the sale of "medicinal Whiskey.”
You can imagine in what for this 'immediate relief' and 'quick warm-up' might come for a person in dire need of a drink! The dose instructions on the bottle were essentially to keep taking 1 teaspoonful until the desired effect. In other words, drink until you feel the desired buzz. Of course, they were careful to give the dose for children as drops.
For more information, see:
http://nostrumopia.blogspot.com/2014/11/aspironal-cold-remedy-better-than.html
1929 - Turtle Soup
Jack Hitt, on his blog, comments on this now rare delicacy:
I wanted to find out what had happened to turtle soup, which was among the most sought-after and popular dishes in all of American history. Accounts in the 18th and 19th centuries of massive parties known as “turtle frolics” suggest they were more popular than hog barbecues and oyster roasts, with descriptions of servants bearing three-foot-long upturned turtle shells filled with hot turtle stew for large crowds.
No early cookbook lacked a recipe for turtle, terrapin, or snapper stew—made from sea turtle, snapping turtle, box turtle, or diamondback terrapin, all of which, in Southern slang, became “cooter” in the pot. But some 50 years ago, turtle soup disappeared and, to most palates, now seems almost improbable verging on unacceptable. What happened?
For centuries, the flavor was legendary, and, really, nothing said American democracy like turtle. The poor man could often find a few slow-moving specimens hanging out at the backyard well, even as the privileged man sought out its refined flavor. Two days after voting for independence in Philadelphia, on July 4, 1776, John Adams celebrated with a bowl of turtle soup; when the war was over, George Washington met with his officers at Fraunces Tavern in lower Manhattan for a farewell frolic; and Lincoln celebrated his second inaugural with terrapin stew. Before Aaron Burr murdered Alexander Hamilton, both were members of the elite Hoboken Turtle Club.
The thing about an average turtle is that once cleaned, it will yield about three or four pounds of meat, so it's easy to see why it was once the workingman's meal. At any house with a well, there might be one or two turtles hanging out in the nearby puddles. I ran across accounts of people finding turtles here and there and tossing them into the water barrel at the well until there were enough to invite friends over for a frolic.
There was a big shift in tastes somewhere after World War I, Freedman told me. It's hard not to note the sheer variety of what was available before then, not just of turtle, but of all manner of meats.
Menus from that time routinely offered everything from roasted snipe and plover to rabbit hash, mutton cutlets, and oxtail. The decline of the family farm and the rise of mechanized factory farming, a process described as the “Eden Crash” in Christopher Leonard's Meat Racket, meant that by World War II, American taste for meat had bottlenecked into chicken, pork, and beef, all three of which could be grown, fed, quartered, and slaughtered according to the efficiency demands of Henry Ford's assembly-line theories. And I can testify that gutting and cleaning turtle is a big hassle and a poor candidate for any kind of industrial streamlining.
For more, see
https://www.saveur.com/history-of-turtle-soup-hunting
For centuries, the flavor was legendary, and, really, nothing said American democracy like turtle. The poor man could often find a few slow-moving specimens hanging out at the backyard well, even as the privileged man sought out its refined flavor. Two days after voting for independence in Philadelphia, on July 4, 1776, John Adams celebrated with a bowl of turtle soup; when the war was over, George Washington met with his officers at Fraunces Tavern in lower Manhattan for a farewell frolic; and Lincoln celebrated his second inaugural with terrapin stew. Before Aaron Burr murdered Alexander Hamilton, both were members of the elite Hoboken Turtle Club.
The thing about an average turtle is that once cleaned, it will yield about three or four pounds of meat, so it's easy to see why it was once the workingman's meal. At any house with a well, there might be one or two turtles hanging out in the nearby puddles. I ran across accounts of people finding turtles here and there and tossing them into the water barrel at the well until there were enough to invite friends over for a frolic.
There was a big shift in tastes somewhere after World War I, Freedman told me. It's hard not to note the sheer variety of what was available before then, not just of turtle, but of all manner of meats.
Menus from that time routinely offered everything from roasted snipe and plover to rabbit hash, mutton cutlets, and oxtail. The decline of the family farm and the rise of mechanized factory farming, a process described as the “Eden Crash” in Christopher Leonard's Meat Racket, meant that by World War II, American taste for meat had bottlenecked into chicken, pork, and beef, all three of which could be grown, fed, quartered, and slaughtered according to the efficiency demands of Henry Ford's assembly-line theories. And I can testify that gutting and cleaning turtle is a big hassle and a poor candidate for any kind of industrial streamlining.
For more, see
https://www.saveur.com/history-of-turtle-soup-hunting
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