story #46 In 1943, Whites were terrified of so-called Eleanor Clubs, named after the First Lady. The secret clubs were purportedly organized Blacks who wanted better pay and a modicum of respect. Such clubs never existed. White paranoia did.

story #45 In 1943, a sociologist (Howard Odum) sent canvassers out to states in the Deep South to collect rumors being spread by Whites regarding their fears about Negroes. The 125 page report makes for horrific reading — and sheds light on enduring strains of racism that continue to plague the U.S. This was not that long ago.

story # 44 During the height of the cold war when Americans were terrified of nuclear bombs, the government wanted to allay those fears by inviting housewives to don helmets and witness an above ground explosion only 2 miles from the detnoation. The merry housewives described in this story couldn’t have been happier. Follow up pieces indicate they loved the experience, though the dawn Nevada desert temperatures were not comfy.

story # 42 This seems prescient given recent events in the Ukraine. This 1946 cartoon is from a publication called Atomic Information.

story # 41 Here’s a piece about how Nazi soldiers are indoctrinated. It’s chilling.

story #40 In 1932 scientists wondered if eyes behaved like photographs. Experiments with rabbits suggested to them that a slain person’s eyes will retain crude images of the murderer’s face. Alas, this idea never caught on with forensics.

story #39 This short clip from 1929 is boggling. For decades the brain was a black box, impossible to see inside. Then along came X-rays which of course pass through the skull, unless. Unless you drill a hole in the brain and inject a gas that stops X-rays from passing through. Voila, a view of brain’s interior. It was said to be an improvement of injecting air into the ventricles to see what they could see. We have come a long way.

story #39 The files on photography from the late 1920s into the 1930s are filled with ideas for how to improve movie film. Here’s one from 1929 about making film from cloth. I doubt it caught on for long.

story #38 This day cable took my breath away. Madame Curie, one of the leading scientists of the 20th century, is compared to a school teacher. She was addressing “some of the world’s greatest physicists” but, of course, being a woman she was not in the club.