30 Ways to Die of Electrocution in 1931

[Fletch]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bre/sets/72157611077138836/detail/

Illustrations from the Austrian book Elektroschutz in 132 Bildern (Electrical Safety in 132 Pictures), showing the high-impact, straight-to-the-point tradition of inter-war Germanic graphic design at perhaps its most macabre.

Apparently, the idea of grounding — anything — was all but unheard of in Europe at the time, because grisly doom awaited one at every turn in the modern electrified world. Pull the lamp close to futz with the radio? BZZZT GAAAH! Reach for the tap while using your hair dryer? FZZZT AARGH! Change a burnt out headlight while steering a tram car? GZZZT AIEEE!

 

[redavis001]

Pretty awesome.

 

[ScionPI2005]

Wow. According to these, people should have just stayed home and sat on their hands so they wouldn't do anything fatal. :eusa_doh:

Thanks for posting; those are interesting.

 

[Cigarband]

For much of rural Europe, electricity was still brand new, so they needed teaching aids.
Here in the boonies of Indiana, my Grandparents didn't get electricity on the farm till 1939! We made fun of my Grandmother for years because she thought that if you left the outlets uncovered the electricity would leak out.:eusa_doh:

 

[filfoster]

OJ another killer juice

Wow. According to these, people should have just stayed home and sat on their hands so they wouldn't do anything fatal. :eusa_doh:

Thanks for posting; those are interesting.

Don't forget that a huge percentage of the U S of A was not electrified until well after WW2. My mother (90) grew up in SW Ohio and recalls that they did not get "City electricity" until the '40's. So they were only in danger from their generator or an oil lamp fire.

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

I hear tell there are still some areas of this country that do not have electric power!

 

[Cobden]

The tags people have put on them are at times hilarious

 

[dr greg]

DIM DARK PAST

A local from around here told me they only got electricity to the outlying farms in the early 60's, his place is 200 yds from Highway 1, and 100 miles from a major city, so it's all relative I think.

 

[Miss Crisplock]

Ach! Even more worrisom (sp?) is the hay in the rain getting wet. That is going to be a problem, Rolf. What were you thinking?

And is it just me or does mail slot guy look a little like Eva's boyfriend?

 

[Dexter'sDame]

Thanks, Fletch!

Fletch, thanks for posting that! I forwarded the link to my great uncle, who is a former lineman. (He's also a WW2 vet, so it's especially fitting.) According to the booklet, I probably would have done myself in while using the telephone...

Parts of Kentucky were without electricity into the early 1960's, too. My raised-on-a-farm mother tells great stories about taking my city-boy dad to meet some of her relatives during the first years of their marriage.

fftopic: Worse yet, one of the elderly aunts in another county had electricity, telephone, and a large inheritance but never got around to converting her handed-down-through-the-family home to indoor plumbing. She distinguished herself from the poor by keeping the outhouse freshly painted and--get this--wallpapering the inside with beautiful wallpaper. Dad said if he hadn't seen it for himself...

 

[dhermann1]

One common type of antique radio is called the "farm house" radio. They were battery operated. They became popular in the earliest days of radio when most homes, both urban and rural, didn't have electricity. You had a big battery that sat on a lower shelf and powered the radio. There would always be a second battery in the shop getting charged. When one battery ran low, you swapped it for the other and the original one would get recharged. These were made into the 1940's.
My friend whose family emigrated from Germany to the US right after WWII said his mom's cousins there didn't have an electric fridge till 1967! And my home town in upstate NY still had an ice house, for people with old fashioned ice boxes, till 1955.

 

[C-dot]

She distinguished herself from the poor by keeping the outhouse freshly painted and--get this--wallpapering the inside with beautiful wallpaper. Dad said if he hadn't seen it for himself...

Visiting a dog breeder a few years back, I used an outhouse quite like hers. It really makes all the difference lol

The child at the Christmas tree! How sad!

 

[Story]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bre/sets/72157611077138836/detail/

Illustrations from the Austrian book Elektroschutz in 132 Bildern (Electrical Safety in 132 Pictures), showing the high-impact, straight-to-the-point tradition of inter-war Germanic graphic design at perhaps its most macabre.

http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?t=36675

 

[Fletch]

Sorry I missed it - and so, I imagine, is everybody else.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?t=36675

A previous thread on a subject? In the Fedora Lounge? Shocking!



.

 

[kampkatz]

Sadly, electrocutions still occur too frequently throughout the world. In Iraq alone over a dozen US soldiers and contractors have been electrocuted while in the shower, on separate occasions.

 

[Fletch]

All it takes is a little gap in some insulation near a pipe...

These pix are available thru the courtesy of Bre Pettis, www.brepettis.com/blog, a technologist living in New York. (English majors in Iowa don't get this kind of stuff first hand, you know.)

 

[Warden]

1930s bedside lamp has just given him a nasty electric shock ~ my poor heart is really in the wars this week.

 

[Story]

A previous thread on a subject? In the Fedora Lounge? Shocking! .

Yeah, I was researching that issue when I posted it last December, since we had to have a building rewired at our FOB in Iraq (see Post 16, above). Now where's my Double-points Green Stamps?