Electric Ladyland

If you were a Victorian interested in curing yourself of an ailment through electricity, you had many options - including electrical chains, necklaces, oil, belts - and, if you were a woman, corsets. And if you were in the market for an electric corset, Dr. George A. Scott was your man. Above is a Canadian ad from the Ladies' Journal in the summer of 1890, and below, courtesy of the New York Public Library Digital Gallery, is a Scott ad from the American magazine Century from July 1887.

The "beautiful Electric Summer Corset" was made of two layers of Nottingham net, with pockets all around the waist area, which held "Watch Spring Magnetodes" which would cure you of aches and pains and make you fashionably small at the same time (which all sounds distinctly uncomfortable).

In Canada there was a special offer on - when you ordered an electric corset, you would get a free pair of skirt supporters, or Dr. Scott's Hair Curler, or two free Dr. Scott's Electric Plasters. The Hair Curler - unlike those manufactured today - does not seem to be electric (Dr. Scott points it out quite strongly when one of his products is electric).

Dr. George A. Scott of 642 Broadway, New York City, was an Englishman obsessed with the marriage of medicine and electricity. At American Artifacts there is an excellent article detailing his need to charge items such as hair brushes with electricity and then sell them as cure-alls. There is also a list of links to the many patents Dr. Scott applied for.

He did invent an electric toothbrush in the 1880s, but it was not like the modern kind. According to the authors of Origin of Everyday Things, it just had a magnet in the handle. Scott also sold Electric Flesh Brushes and Hair Brushes - and brushes for horses, too. Here are some wonderful ads for the Electric Hair Brush. It was supposed to cure everything from neuralgia to headaches. And the Flesh Brush looks like you could probably use it on a horse's tail, actually.

The Bakken Museum of Electricity in Minneapolis has an 1888 pamphlet that Dr. Scott wrote about his favorite subject. The title page, reproduced on their site, states that Dr. Scott was associated with something called the Pall Mall Electric Company - no doubt a nod to his English origins. Here is the title page, which I also found on Wikimedia Commons.

But perhaps my favorite Dr. Scott invention is the one advertised in 1887 in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

Dr. Scott's Self Lighting Electric Cigarettes/ Light On the Box, In the Strongest Gale/No Matches Required./ No Sulphur/No Phosphorus/Best Ever Made/ For Sale By All Dealers/ 10 Cents A Box.

I wish that there was a picture of these! I would like to see what Dr. Scott came up with - although at a safe distance.

Over at Retro Futurism is another post about Dr. Scott and his electrifying corset - he is a popular fellow!

Still, at least Dr. Scott was not explicitly urging women to use the Electric Hair Brush and Toothbrush while wearing the Electric Corset - short-circuiting is not enjoyable, especially in the summer.

SOURCES

Acton, Johnny, Tania Adams and Matt Packer, Origins of Everyday Things (Sterling, 2006), p. 88.

"A Remarkable Invention" [advertisement], Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 12, 1887, p. 16.