Vibrators were used exclusively by doctors up
until around 1900. The first of such devices was
made in 1869, when American physician George Taylor
patented the first steam-powered massage and vibratory
apparatus. Unfortunately, their use was exclusive
-- the units were costly to manufacture, difficult
to move and marketed for use by spas and physicians
only. In 1880 the first battery-operated vibrator
was designed by British physician Joseph Mortimer
Granville and manufactured by the Weiss Company.
Like their present-day counterparts, these battery-operated
vibes were less expensive and easier to move and
manipulate than their predecessors. By 1900 more
than a dozen manufacturers began producing both
battery-powered vibrators and models that operated
from line electricity. In the newly electrified
home, women were avid consumers of electrical appliances.
First electrified was the sewing machine; the fan,
the tea kettle, the toaster, and the vibrator came
next.
During the turn of the century, vibrators began
to be marketed as home appliances and were widely
advertised in household publications such as Modern
Woman and Woman's Home Companion. Their
ads were legendary, promoting such claims as "Relieves
All Suffering. Cures Disease." Another great ad
boasted, "Invented by a woman who knows a woman's
needs." A woman's needs, indeed! By 1906 the American
Vibrator Company of St. Louis, Missouri, was one
of several advertising regulars with similarly
memorable copy, suggesting to women that the "American
Vibrator ... can be used by yourself in the privacy
of dressing room or boudoir, and furnish every
woman with the essence of perpetual youth." Throughout
the 1910s and '20s these ads flourished, yet little
mention of the ads or products appeared in the
magazines' copy.
Mail order was the standard method of marketing
vibrators between 1900 and 1920. However, in the
mid-1920s vibrators began to appear in erotic films
and photography, effectively driving them from "respectable" publications.
Vibrator ads virtually disappeared until the modern
vibrator resurfaced in the 1960s as a frankly sexual
device.
All photos by Violet Blue.
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