42 Peculiar Products of the Past

This little number shown above is The Isolator, a brainchild of one Hugo Gernsback, who is now often referred to as a pioneer of science fiction. The device, advertised in a 1925 issue of Science and Invention magazine (of which Gemsback was the editor), was intended to help a writer (or reader) focus completely on their task at hand. Or rather, to hyperfocus. The slit in the mask only allowed for one line of text to be seen at a time. If that wasn't enough to disorient and produce tunnel vision, sound was blocked and oxygen piped in via the tank.

As one who writes for a number of outlets as well as for myself, I think the act of being in a room with a computer and few distractions for as long as it takes to see a project to completion is quite enough isolation as it is, thanksverymuchhugo.

The 41 other strange, often hilarious contraptions featured in this article were marketed to people of the past as the latest products to revolutionize their lives. Before there were infomercials in the pre-dawn hours, these ads lurked in newspapers and magazines, their sponsors hoping the public would embrace them like apple pie. Fortunately for us, none of the products shown here survived the quasi-Darwinian cut of devices to persevere. -Image Source