Historical friction

The idea that almost everything is the product of some other event strikes me as so obvious as to make me wonder: Who doesn't know that?

Still, you'd think we would learn from it.

Somewhere around 1900, give or take, an amazing product called the Electropoise was invented. It sold for $25 and was supposed to cure everything but a bad temper. Before the thing hit the market, even the quakiest doctor said the Electropoise was a fraud.

It kept selling. In those days, the best form of punishment was tar followed by feathers.

Then in the 1920s, a Kansas duck named J.B. Brinkley managed to get rich convincing millions of people that a goat's gland extract would cure all their ailments.

Brinkley eventually lost his radio license over the lie and continued to pawn off his remedy from a radio station based in Mexico.

The curiosities here are the stuff of writing. These were real people, not the movie version of the Rainmaker. They also keep happening. It's called aloe vera treatments now, or some kind of shining-armor tea from the western side of Everest.

We all want to live forever.

As writers, the lure of historical fiction is often too great to pass up. The parts of historical fiction that make the genre amazing are the ones that include real freaks, real liars, real events.

The big picture isn't always what it seems.

People took the first train to California in 1850 and they found what they deserved to find. They also keep voting for promises because promises is what made the Electropoise the most amazing product since electricity.

Shocking.

America didn't have much faith in doctors in the 1880s and the newspapers are littered with ads that promote healing through the gentle but effective purging of the kidneys and bowels. The belief that the germs should be flushed ... shit rolls downhill.

There's plenty there for the creative writer. The ads were written by men and the women were told what was wrong with them and what they needed to do to be right with the world.

Rosy cheeks.

Send a dollar and we will fix you right up.

Piggly Wiggly, PO Box 123, New York