Small Home Gazette, Spring 2017

Window to the Past: Hair-Raising Hair Dryers

Though the first handheld hair dryers appeared on the market in about 1915, they were heavy and expensive. Enterprising minds quickly realized that household vacuum cleaners produce exhaust, and so they invented methods to harness, heat and direct that air toward a person’s head.

Here are two do-it-yourself options suggested to early 20th century households in the pages of Modern Mechanix and Inventions magazine.

The construction of the hair dryer in the magazine article bears a passing resemblance to modern handheld dryers, though we are not sure we would want to hold a 660-watt heating element housed in metal pie plates and a tin can next to our wet hair.

The illustration below makes use of another commonplace appliance—the toaster. Now let’s see… An electrified toaster sealed in an asbestos-lined wood box with cardboard tubes sticking into it… What could possibly go wrong?