The Dimple Machine shown in an advertisement on the left while a women poses with the face device in the right photo. Photo Credit: Modern Mechanix/The Babble

In 1936, Isabella Gilbert of Rochester, New York developed a “machine” to create dimples. In order to create the desired indentations, this device was worn over the cheeks while two knobs press into the cheeks. According to the advertisement, after continual use, the device “soon make a fine set of dimples.” The American Medical Association argued that the “Dimple Maker” would not make dimples or even enlarge original dimples. They also stated that prolonged use of the devise may actually cause cancer.

Not only is the “Dimple Maker” an unfortunate invention, but it also sounds (and looks) like it would hurt!

Photo Credit: State Archives of Florida (Florida Memory)

Student at the Florida State College for Women reading about the Pearl Harbor Attack in Tallahassee, Florida, December 1941.

Photo Credit: Burgert Brothers/State Archives of Florida (Florida Memory)

Horse-drawn ambulance in Tampa, Florida around 1912.

Photo Credit: Arthur E. Scott/Reni News Photos/Courtesy of WHNPA/NPR

Television cowboy and roping legend Montie Montana lassoes President Eisenhower in the presidential reviewing box during his 1953 inaugural parade.

Photo Credit: Museum of the American West/LA Times

Photo Credit: U.S. National Library of Medicine

Medical staff attend to a wounded Choctaw U.S. soldier at the U.S. National Red Cross Hospital No. 5 in Auteuil, France, c.1917-1918.

Polly Mead Patraw, the first female ranger-naturalist at the Grand Canyon, dressed in her uniform in 1931. (Source)

Polly Mead Patraw became the first female ranger at the Grand Canyon in 1929. As a ranger-naturalist, she was only the second female in the entire park service.

During a roadside naturalist talk, ranger-naturalist Polly Mead talks with an auto caravan on a East Rim drive at the Grand Canyon, June 1931. Photo Credit: Grand Canyon NPS

In 1927, at the age of 23, Polly first laid eyes on the Grand Canyon. She was a botany student at the University of Chicago. The Grand Canyon was a stop on a summer-long trip that included visits at several other national parks in the west. When she first saw the canyon, from the North Rim, she was wonder struck. It was “a most emotional experience. It was wonderful.” She later stated. Polly wanted to learn more about it and decided to use it as the subject for her master’s thesis.

When Polly graduated, her benefactor, who was also her aunt, gave Polly the choice between a European trip or a trip back to the Grand Canyon to do research. Polly chose the Grand Canyon. She spent the next two summers researching near the canyon’s North Rim. Usually she stayed twenty miles north of the rim at a lodge but occasionally went on overnight trips to study plant life and collect specimens. On these trips, Polly would bring only a bedroll, canteen and a little pistol for protection. She completed her thesis by the end of her second summer. It was a complete study of the Kaibab Plateau (which borders the Grand Canyon’s North Rim).

After her thesis was accepted, Polly wanted to stay at the canyon. She first applied to the Forest Service but was denied because they did not hire women as ranger-naturalists – the position she wanted. Undeterred, Polly applied for the same position on the South Rim with the National Park Service. They accepted and, on August 1, 1930, Polly was sworn into office by Preston Patraw, the park’s Assistant Superintendent.

Ranger-naturalist Polly Patraw showing a foliage sample to visitor by an automobile around the East Rim of the Grand Canyon, June 1931. Photo Credit: Collins/Grand Canyon NPS

Her uniform consisted of the standard National Park Service uniform (similar to that of a riding habit). It had to be tailored to her since they did not have female uniforms. She also wore a soft-brim hat. Her job as a ranger-naturalist included many different things such as campfire lectures, auto caravan tours, nature hikes, planting wildflower gardens, and writing about various projects and her findings.

Polly began dating Preston Patraw, who sworn her into office. During a drive around the canyon’s rim in March 1931, Preston and Polly became engaged. They married within two months. Preston wanted Polly to stop working and stay home. She agreed. “I just said, ‘Yes, dear,’ as we did in those days.” Polly later remarked with a laugh. The family moved from park to park, going wherever her husband’s job took them. She missed the Grand Canyon but enjoyed discovering the similarities and differences between it and other parks.

Though no longer an employee with the National Park Service, Polly continued to study and write about botany and her own side projects. In 1954, Preston became the Superintendent of the Grand Canyon National Park and the family moved back. Her husband retired a year later and the family again moved. This time back to their Santa Fe home, where they had lived from 1947 to 1954. In addition to paving the way for other female rangers, Polly added significantly to the research and literature of plant and flower life in the Southwest. Polly died in 2001 but her legacy as a trailblazing ranger-naturalist still lives on in her beloved Grand Canyon.

Sources
Betty Leavengood, Grand Canyon Women: Lives Shaped by Landscape, Grand Canyon: AZ: Grand Canyon Association, 2004.
R. Bryce Workman, “National Park Service Uniforms: Breeches, Blouses, and Skirts, 1918-1991,” National Park Service, No. 4 (1998).
Grand Canyon National Park, “Insider’s Look at Grand Canyon: Webisode #33 – Women History Month Transcript.”
“Canyon Lodges: Grand Canyon,” PBS.

Photo Credit: Library of Congress

”When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer ‘present’ or ‘not guilty.”’

- President Theodore Roosevelt

Photo Credit: Vern C. Gorst/University of Washington Libraries

These “Spruce Girls” are posing on the beach while wearing spruce wood veneer bathing suits. The girls were promoting products for Gray Harbor lumber industry during “Wood Week” in Hoquiam, Washington, ca. 1929.

Four “Spruce Girls” wearing wood veneer bathing suits standing in the surf. Photo Credit: Vern C. Gorst/University of Washington Libraries

“Spruce Girls” Photo Credit: Vern C. Gorst/University of Washington Libraries

Five “Spruce Girls” standing on railway car. Photo Credit: Vern C. Gorst/University of Washington Libraries

“Spruce Girls” with large umbrella. Photo Credit: Vern C. Gorst/University of Washington Libraries

Bathing under a large umbrella, these “Spruce Girls,” wearing wood veneer bathing suits, are holding small boards shaped like feet. Photo Credit: Vern C. Gorst/University of Washington Libraries

Photo Credit: Gertrude Käsebier/George Eastman House Collection

This photo is simply entitled “Dancing School” and was taken by influential early 20th century photographer Gertrude Käsebier. She was especially known for her eloquent images of motherhood, which can be seen in this 1905 photograph that may depict three young girls and their mother dancing.

An American soldier stands next to a sign erected by the U.S. Army to mark the site of the Nammering atrocity, May 6, 1945. It reads: “In eternal memory. Here lie 800 martyrs who were murdered by Nazi executioners in April 1945. Rest in peace.” Photo Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Seymour Schenkman

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum detailed the events of the Nammering atrocity in association with the photo above:

On April 19, 1945, a freight train with nearly 4,500 prisoners from Buchenwald pulled onto the railroad siding at Nammering. The train had been destined for Dachau, but at Plattling it was diverted towards Nammering because of damage to the railroad caused by Allied bombing. Once in Nammering, some of the local inhabitants attempted to give the prisoners food and water, but these provisions were stolen by the 150 SS and police officers guarding the train. The commanding officer in charge, Lieutenant Hans Meerbach, ordered during the halt that the bodies of the dead be removed from the train and cremated. This work proceeded too slowly for him, however, and prisoners were forced to carry the bodies of the dead to a nearby mass grave in a ravine roughly 500 yards from the train. There the prisoners carrying the corpses were shot by the guards and they were also buried in the grave. Altogether 524 prisoners were shot and nearly 800 were interred in the mass grave. The bodies were then covered with lime and the grave was flooded to speed up decomposition. Those 3,100 prisoners who had remained on the train were sent on to Dachau, where they were liberated. After the discovery of the site by U.S. troops on April 28, the ranking American officer in the area forced SS men collected from a nearby POW camp to exhume the corpses and lay them out on either side of the ravine above the mass grave. The inhabitants of Nammering were then ordered to walk through the gravesite, and the bodies were buried in the surrounding towns of Eging am See, Aicha vom Wald, Nammering, and Fuerstenstein.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Photo Credit: The Field Museum Library

A zookeeper smokes a pipe while feeding the bears at Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, Illinois, 1900.

Photo Credit: The Field Museum Library

Zookeeper smoking his pipe mouth and feeding two bears who are standing upright at Lincoln Park Zoo.

History By Zim has reached 1,000,000 views!

Excuse me while I do my happy dance . . . I’m not ashamed to admit that it looks almost identical to Stephen Colbert’s but with more jazz hands. . . .

To celebrate this amazing milestone, I am having a giveaway over on History By Zim’s Facebook page. One lucky participant will win two books (“The Smithsonian Book of Presidential Trivia” and an autographed copy of “The Poppy Lady”), Ken Burns’ Prohibition (DVD) and a History By Zim tote bag.

Enter to win over at History By Zim’s Facebook page!

I would like to send out a HUGE thank you to all of you! This “little ole’ history website” has sure taken off. I never imagined that within two years History By Zim would hit 1,000,000 views. Initially I started this website to keep me busy after finishing my master’s degree. Almost two years later the website has generated interest from all sorts of people and organizations. I’ve met some great people and learned more than I ever did from textbooks. Your continual support and encouragement has meant the world to me.

THANK YOU!

History By Zim’s “support” staff. (Photo by Zim)

Designed by Jay Layman

Mari Levine, “Cakes Throughout U.S. History [Infographic],” America’s Test Kitchen, January 23, 2012.

Postcard featuring the 14-ton Giant Underwood Master Typewriter on display at the World’s Fair. Photo Credit: Moore’s Postcard Museum

The 1939-40 New York World’s Fair was hosted in the Flushing Meadows Park in Queens. It was the first to be based on the future with the slogan “Dawn of a New Day.” An estimated 44 million people attended. At the Underwood Elliott Fisher exhibit in the Business Systems Building an unusual item was on display – a typewriter. However, it was not any ordinary typewriter but rather it was The Giant Underwood Master Typewriter.

The typewriter, according to Moore’s Postcard Museum

Operates daily at the Underwood Elliott Fisher Exhibit in the Business Systems and Insurance Building at the New York World’s Fair. This huge machine, weighing 14 tons, is 1,728 times larger than the regular Underwood Master. It required 3 years to build. Each typebar weighs 45 pounds and the carriage alone weighs 3,500 pounds. Letters are typed on “stationery” measuring 9 by 12 feet, and the ribbon in the machine is 100 feet long and five inches wide. Two box cars were required to transport the Giant to the World’s Fair.

A man dressed as a cowboy studies a large letter in front of the massive typewriter. Photo Credit: New York Public Library/Retronaut

With her right foot poised on the “N” key, pretty Miss Muriel Davis is about to complete a message of greeting from Harvey D. Gibson, chairman of the board of the World’s Fair of 1940 in New York to visitors to the big exposition. Photo Credit: New York Public Library

A happy group, including a clown, poise with the giant typewriter. Photo Credit: New York Public Library

Frank Buck’s elephant and giant typewriter. Photo Credit: New York Public Library

Employees of twenty years who brought the 5 millionth typewriter to the fair exhibit sitting on the typewriter. Photo Credit: New York Public Library

Two woman and the giant typewriter. Photo Credit: New York Public Library

Women posing with giant typewriter at the Underwood Elliott Fisher exhibit in the Business Systems Building. Photo Credit: New York Public Library

This image shows the scale of the typewriter with a man and woman standing next to it. Photo Credit: New York Public Library

Photo Credit: Grand Canyon NPS

Grand Canyon forest ranger Warren Hamilton and Marv Adams, a maintenance worker, cut down trees to produce a fire line on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, circa 1934.