This beauty innovation from 1917 will make you appreciate the modern hand held hair dryer! It consists of a metal tube that you place over one of the burners on your stove. A lighted burner, of course. The model looks quite calm, all things considered.The article states that a Chicago woman invented this. Her name was Albertina Keegan, and her 1916 patent is here at Google Patents.
Albertina (Johnson) Keegan was born about 1877 in Wisconsin, to Swedish immigrant parents. She was married to livery stable owner Thomas Keegan. In the 1920 census, her occupation is erroneously listed as "None."
Next time, we'll look at the town of Gravesend, in Brooklyn - to set the scene for the story of the Hubbard poisoning case of 1878, which took place there.
Advertisement from Popular Mechanics, April 1917, link here.
1920 US Census, Thomas Keegan household, Chicago Ward 2, Cook, IL; #54/196, Series T625, Roll 306, p. 164.
16 comments:
Interesting. I think this is an ingenious idea. I'm not bothered by the open flame thing. After all, every time I cook there are open flames and I've been able to keep my hair away from the flames, so far :)
Dr. Julie-Ann - It just reminds me of the hair dryer in the college swimming pool building (before they renovated) which pretty much baked your hair dry...Not that it was attached to a stove or anything, but it didn't add to the experience of swimming (poorly in my case) in an unheated pool in October/November. Good times! :)
Oh, gees!!! It looks like it's blasting her!!
I'd love to own one! I am totally serious.
Whoa! I wonder how many women had shorter hairstyles after using this! www.satisfiedsole.com
Lordy, an open camp fire or wooden stove would be far safer!
Lin - It sure does. And yet she looks fairly OK with that.
Agnes - I wonder how long they made them for?
Pam - Well, a few years later women did start bobbing their hair!
Jayne - I wonder how securely attached it was to the stove...
This method of hair drying leaves me with this question, how did they condition their hair during these times? A little olive oil? lol
Hey I have one of those old stoves in the garage. If I could just find one of those women's hair things I'd be set!
Why does it say for women's use? Men didn't wash their hair back then?
Although I guess guys only blew dried their hair in the 70's. Thank God they stopped!
Me-Me - Well, the olive oil was right there on the counter...
Kris - That's a good point, why is this just for women? Maybe men just towel-dried.
And I suppose there's a little chipmunk in there on one of those crazy-ass wheels running like mad running the "blower"!
Let's think about this for a minute. Woman with thirty pounds of wet hair sits comfortably in front of a 400' stove while an imaginary fan blows the heat through an unused burner fitted with a bent piece of stovepipe and onto her lovely locks.
EEEEK!!! I'm shaving my head and taking the damn chipmunk to lunch before he dies of a heart attack and somebody calls those animal rights people.
blessings,
julia
She looks so calm...not even fanning herself from the blast of heat! And I thought my first hair dryer was a nuisance. It sat on the table with a flexible tube running to a plastic "bonnet". I just recently sold it...still working.
Man, I'm glad I wasn't alive back then!
My hair is just a few inches above my waist and thinking about using this scares me. I wonder how many people got badly burned from touching it before it cooled off?
Julia Ward - You described my experience with the ancient college-pool hair dryer perfectly - well, sans chipmunk. I think.
Judy - Those were the kind they always had lined up in beauty parlors, right? Ringo Starr gets to sit under one in "A Hard Days' Night," I believe (he doesn't look all that dismayed either, he was probably the one one of them they could get to do it)
Hairball - Probably a lot. And it doesn't look like it bolted on or anything. Accidents just waiting to happen...
I wish I had known about this device 20 years ago when I had hair. I think I can still use it now to dry my hair on my knees I guess.
Carl - It's multi-purpose! :)
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