By Keva Hoffmann Boardman —

It’s a crumbling brown leather belt with an insert of linked silver-plated rectangular batteries. It might not look like much, but this curious artifact, an electric belt, represents a weird and wonderful era in the history of electricity.

Electrotherapy — using electricity to stimulate nerves and muscles — goes way back to Egyptian times. Patients were treated for pain, gout and baldness with the shocks from electric fish. Scientists, physicians and inventors began experimenting with electricity in the 18th century. The first battery was developed in 1800. The mid-19th century led to technological advances such as the steam engine, the telegraph and the electric light bulb. Electricity was fueling radical changes in the world.

At the 1851 London World’s Fair, the “Hydro-electric Belt” was exhibited. The batteries and electrodes sent an electric current through the belt’s wearer. It was billed as a “miracle cure” for just about everything: arthritis, rheumatism, sciatica, gout, glaucoma, migraines, depression/anxiety, weakness, poor memory, liver disease, hernias, nervous disorders, indigestion and even impotency.

Uh huh. Too good to be true? People didn’t think so. Queen Victoria’s personal doctors bought into it as did Charles Dickens. Based on what we know about electrotherapy today, it might have helped with nerve and muscle pain and regeneration. But no matter, because the lovely vision painted by the inventors was more than enough to sell to a public enamored with the magic and power of electricity.

Companies were soon manufacturing batteries and designing their own electric belts for what became an insatiable market. Slick advertisements, with colorful images of lightning bolts and strong healthy people using the electric belt and other devices, made up 25 percent of all advertising in 1880. You see the miraculous electric belt in newspapers, medical journals and mail-order magazines like Sears & Roebuck.

Still, many in the medical profession preached caution and spoke out against the “quakery and suspicious backgrounds” of the inventors and companies selling electric health wares. They agreed that there were valid uses for electricity in cauterization, resuscitation and treatment of pain, paralysis and neurological disorders. But the public wanted it all to be true. Tens of thousands of electric belts were sold in the US alone between 1890 and 1920.

The Sophienburg Museum was gifted the pictured electric belt in 1979. There is the leather belt, the chain battery pack, several wool-covered circular zinc electrodes with wires, a current regulator and a “suspensory” accessory. It came with a booklet printed in German in 1900 containing instructions for use. This is important; to achieve optimal results, you had to place the electrodes in the proper place in the proper way. The belt is charged by dipping the battery in a solution of ¼ clear vinegar to ¾ water. (in some cases, the person’s sweat would work) and repeated use was suggested. The “suspensory” accessory in the museum’s belt is for male patients (read special pouch for electrode to use on the family jewels) and could be attached to the belt and used for … ahem … well, to stimulate blood flow. To quote the maker, the belt “has sufficient volume to saturate every nerve and vital organ of the body with electrical force; it pours this life into the body for hours at a time in a slow, continuous stream.” The regulator allowed the wearer to change the power of the current flowing through the belt. “One Belt is enough for a family for six or eight, as it is worn only from three to six hours a day.”

Notice the belt’s condition. The leather is not so much crumbling from age as it is burned. Burned! This was not a comfortable experience despite the happy faces of the men and women in the booklet. The addition of the “regulator” on the Museum’s belt and wool covers on the circular zinc electrodes were to “alleviate burning and blistering of the skin”. One article said that you were to “read a lovely story book” while taking the treatment, as if that would take your mind off things. Of course, for some people this just might have been a pleasant experience.

I like lots of things about this artifact, but one of the striking things about it is its decorative nature. Back in Victorian times, utilitarian things were also made to look beautiful. They were all about form and function; currently, we are all about function. The battery chain pack has silver-plated cases (better for conducting an electrical current) with a pierced decoration filled with ruby red enameling or glass and nice pretty clasps on the ends. On its own, it would make a lovely belt. The leather belt fastens with plated buckles embellished with a coin-like medallion featuring a Roman soldier. At the very least, one would feel stylish while doing the electric belt thing.

Our electric belt was manufactured by Dr. M.A. McLaughlin, who seems to have had offices in Australia, the US, Cuba, China, India, Canada and Europe. McLaughlin’s advertised it had patents in both the US and the UK. There was supposed to have been an office in Dallas, Texas.

We have the electric belt on display in the pharmacy exhibit. There are other unusual items in the exhibit: wire thumb cages to prevent thumb-sucking, cod liver oil, patent medicines, an assortment of mortar and pestles and huge prescription ledgers used by the pharmacist.

Sources: “Dr. McLaughlin’s Electrical Belt”, Sophienburg Museum; “When Self Electrocution Was Used to Cure What Ails You”, Krissy Howard; “Good Vibrations: The History of Electrotherapy”; “It’s Electric! Electrotherapy and Bioelectricity on Display the NMHM”, Emily Morris; “Electric Health”, Steve Fowler; “History of Electrostimulation”, Bluetens; “Memories and Miscellany”, June 5, 2021; https://atlasobscura.com/articles/the-victorian-tool-for-everything.

“Around the Sophienburg” is published every other weekend in the New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung.

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By Keva Hoffmann Boardman —

“Hairstory” is a new and unusual exhibit opening in April at the Sophienburg Museum. The museum’s collection was scoured for artifacts of human hair. What? Yes, the museum has a collection of human hair artifacts that include jewelry, wreaths and saved first curls. You might think that odd, but even I have my kids’ first cut curls in tiny boxes in my dresser drawer. Long ago, that so tangible part of a loved one was also cherished but in much more creative ways.

Since the 17th century, a person’s hair has been treated with a special sentimentality. To give a beau a lock of your hair was a sometimes scandalous action; it was a secret declaration of love and promise. In the 18th century, people began keeping a lock of a child’s or spouse’s hair as a remembrance. In a time when death came quickly and often early, what mother would not find comfort in the sight and feel of a tiny curl from their dear one’s head?

In the 19th century, Queen Victoria went into deep mourning at the death of Prince Consort Albert. Her many-years-long grieving of him ushered in a new fashion of mourning. Those grieving wore black or dark colored clothing, armbands hats and bonnets. Gold jewelry was replaced by buttons and beads of black glass or jet (hardened, polished coal).

This fashion also gave rise to many hand-crafted ways to use the departed one’s hair. In gimp work, strands of hair were knotted on thread, twisted and looped around thin wires and then shaped into fanciful flowers and leaves to form bouquets and wreaths. These would be added to each time a family member passed away. Often, the wreaths would begin in the shape of a crescent with the top open to allow additions and reach up towards heaven. These fantastic and incredible creations were placed in shadow boxes to hang on walls or placed under glass domes to set on mantles or tables.

Jewelry, too, was carefully and painstakingly fabricated of human hair. Called table work, earrings were woven into acorn shapes or loops. Bracelets were braided into chains of hair and brooches were decorated with patterns, bows or flowers of hair. Tightly braided tubular or flat chains of hair took the place of men’s gold watch chains. These memorials replaced objects made of shiny metals and they allowed the memory of the deceased to actually be close enough to touch.

In the Sophienburg’s “Hairstory” exhibit you will find Erinnerungen or memories made of the hair of the then living as well. Locks of hair were given at the parting of friends or relatives and carefully pasted into small albums. Children’s curls were preserved in boxes (like mine!). Friends took strands of their hair and wove braids of them weaving their friendship in tokens that lasted past their lifetimes. While hair is organic, it lasts a long time before breaking down. In preparing the artifacts, I found out that old hair has a particular odor….

The peak era of decorative hair work was from the 1830s to 1910s. The craft pretty much died out by World War I; women had less time since they had to continue life without the help of their husbands. The fussiness and formality of the Victorian and Edwardian age gave way to “modern” thinking which brought about huge changes in clothing and home décor fashion.

Highlighted in the “Hairstory” exhibit are hair wreaths of old local families formed into bouquets, crescents and hearts. Colored ribbon and glass and metal beads are often included which add sparkle and life to the rather drab shades of black, brown and pale-yellow hair. These family wreaths, or Familienkränze, are essentially family trees made of hair flowers. These human hair creations share the stage with a wreath made from the hair of one family’s much-loved horses.

Jewelry examples include an enameled gold brooch featuring palette work. For this, the hair is woven and flattened and a resin is applied to stiffen it. Crisp shapes can then be cut out and placed under glass. The intricacy of this brooch and the other jewelry items are astounding. Just remind yourself of the kind of lighting the women were working under — and they were using strands of hair!

Each carefully preserved artifact testifies to the love of a family or a friendship long ago and keeps alive the memory of a child, a husband, a mom or a best friend. Odd? Weird? Yes, but also rather touching don’t you think?

The “Hairstory” exhibit will run from April to December 2022, Tuesday-Saturday, 9-4, at the Sophienburg Museum.

Sources: Sophienburg Museum Artifacts collection; www.nationalgeographic.com; www.artandobject.com; www.artsy.net; www.everhart-museum.org/; www.leilashairmuseum.net; www.atlasobscura.com

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Have you ever watched animals communicate with each other? No words, just bark, growl and whine. They get their point across. If they didn’t, they would have invented words. That’s what humans did. Some still bark, growl, and whine, but these sounds are usually accompanied by words.

Early human communication consisted of a system called “tell-a-woman”. Now, don’t get mad at me, ladies, because there was also “tell-a-man” and by the number of saloons in early New Braunfels, I’m guessing that men won out. This ancient form of communication was around long before the telegraph, telephone and tell-a-SKYPE, where you see the person anywhere in the world.

Depending on where you lived and who you associated with, different languages developed. Time went on and there was a need to communicate with people far away.

Someone (or two) developed a system of communicating from hill to hill. Smoke signals. It was too far to yell or growl from one place to another. The English developed the semaphore, a signaling device using flags or lights. On top of the hill was built a contraption with shutters where men could flash signals from one tower to another tower. A message could be relayed as far as 85 miles. This system was obsolete by the middle of the 19^th century with the invention of the telegraph. Several systems were invented before the invention of the telegraph.

Samuel F.B. Morse is given most of the credit for inventing the telegraph. This may not be entirely true but Morse did prove that signals could be transmitted by wire. Several inventions led up to the invention of the electric telegraph all over the world. The Morse Code, a series of dots and dashes, was used. Western Union built its first transcontinental line in 1861 following the railroad tracks.

Morse received funds from Congress to install a line between Washington D.C. and Baltimore, Maryland. His idea was to bury wires. This idea failed so he had the idea to hang wires from trees and this also failed. Finally he had the idea to hang the wires from poles. In 1844 Morse stationed himself in the Supreme Court Chamber in the Capitol in Washington D.C. He sent the famous message “What hath God wrought” to his assistant, Alfred Vail, in Baltimore. Vail got the message.

By 1846 a new business, the Associated Press, took full advantage of the telegraph to send messages to newspaper offices. What a boom for rapid communication! The national election results of 1848 were sent via wire to newspapers for the first time.

Abraham Lincoln’s State of the Union address was transmitted over telegraph wires to all “loyal states”. Obviously Confederates didn’t get the speech. Lincoln was supposedly fascinated by the technology of the telegraph and would spend hours, even overnight, in the War Department building, keeping track of what was going on during the Civil War. Messages were easily sent to newspapers across the United States but it seemed impossible to send a message by wire to Europe.

An American businessman named Cyrus Field organized a new company called the New York Newfoundland and London Telegraph Co. Field began laying 2,500 miles of cable from Ireland’s Dingle Peninsula. After several failed attempts of the use of the wire, Queen Victoria in England successfully sent a letter of congratulations to newly elected president, James Buchanan, on the advent of his election.

By the end of the 19^th century, most of the world was connected by the telegraph.

What was happening in New Braunfels as far as communication? When the emigrants first came to the Republic of Texas, the fastest and slowest form of communication was by mail. It took about three months for letters to arrive from Germany on a ship and then had to be transported overland.

Letters and penny postcards were delivered to stations by stagecoach. The stagecoach stopped at the Schmitz Hotel located on Main Plaza. Throughout the Civil War (ending in 1865), news about the war reached New Braunfels by stagecoach. Then there was the Pony Express. In 1880 the International and Great Northern Railroad came to New Braunfels and mail was sent by rail.

At a special meeting of the NB City Council on May 12, 1865, the mayor gave permission to the Western Union to fix the places for posts with the agent in such a manner that the free passage and use of the streets of the city would not be obstructed. The operator that worked the telegraph had to learn Morse Code. When the message arrived over the wire, it was written down and then hand-delivered to the person it was meant for. In1871 the telegraph office moved from the Schmitz Hotel to August Schmitz’s home on 267 Mill St. It is confusing, but unknown, the relationship of August to Schmitz Hotel owner Jacob Schmitz. In 1876 Charles Schmitz took his father’s place as telegraph operator at the Mill St. home. In 1879 the telegraph office was moved back to the hotel and then moved to the train depot in 1887.

Eventually the telegraph and telephone offices merged. City Council passed an ordinance Dec. 10,1895, granting Southwestern Telephone and Telegraph permission to erect and maintain on the streets, alleys and public ways, poles, fixtures and wires necessary to supply NB citizens with communication by telephone.

The house at 267 E. Mill St. still stands today at the same address where August Schmitz once operated the early telegraph office. The land on which this house sits was originally conveyed to Francis Gilbeau by the German Emigration Company in 1847. The third owner was August Schmitz, the telegraph operator. Until recently the property belonged to the Fuhrmann-Ludwig family and last year the property was bought by Danny and Anna Lisa Tamez. The building actually has two complete rental units. The fachwerk walls are still standing, as are the original floors. The story is that the bricks that line the walls were put together with mud and water from the Comal River a block away. They also bought the Ludwig house directly behind the E. Mill St. property facing E. Bridge St. which they have also restored.

The early home housing the telegraph office and the Ludwig house on Bridge St. downtown have been restored for vacationers to be able to enjoy a little bit of the past in the present. Danny and Anna Lisa Tamez also own the Gruene Estate on Rock Street. This 15-acre B&B was built in 1857 and is the original homestead of Ernst and Antoinette Gruene.

Since change is inevitable, what changes will take place in communication in the future? Will we be communicating only mentally as science fiction suggests?

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