1800s
Portrait of three women featured in the book The Unseen Eye: Photographs from the Unconscious by W.M. Hunt. The Unseen Eye: Photographs from the Unconscious presents a wonderfully idiosyncratic and compelling collection of photographs assembled around a particular theme: in each image, the gaze of the subject is averted, the face obscured or the eyes firmly closed.
(via La Lettre de la Photographie and turnofthecentury)
Date unknown
Overstocked with a large supply of men’s spring and winter coats, a clothier in Copenhagen, Denmark, adopted a unique sales scheme. He erected a scaffolding around his store building and completely covered it from roof to sidewalk with more than a thousand overcoats. The novel display attracted prospective customers in such droves that police were summoned. Although the police ordered the proprietor to remove the display, he succeeded in selling all the overcoats.
1880s
Hiram and Barney were two mentally disabled brothers from a Connecticut farm, born in 1825 and 1827 respectively. They were each 40 inches tall and weighed about 45 pounds, yet could perform feats of great strength such as lifting heavy weights and wrestling with audience members on stage. Discovered and subsequently promoted by a traveling showman in 1850, Hiram and Barney were given new names, Waino and Plutano, and a sensational back story - they were said to be from the island of Borneo, where they had been captured after a great struggle with armed sailors.
