Businesses with (obscurely) Unfortunate Names

H. H. Holmes Testing Lab: "Quality since 1936"

You would think their motto would be something more like "absolutely no relation to the 1880s serial killer with the deathtrap hotel," but I guess that's harder to fit on a business card.

Hey!

Pic of the real Chicken Man!

Hey!

Pic of the real Chicken Man!

Businesses with (Obscurely) Unfortunate Names

H. H. Holmes Testing Lab: "Quality since 1936"

You would think their motto would be something more like "absolutely no relation to the 1890s killer with the deathtrap hotel," but I guess that's harder to fit on a business card.

Stupid Brain, Go to Sleep

Ghoulish websurfing + insomnia means I am now unable to stop formatting an argument about why I think the posed Victorian post-mortem photograph* is a myth**, and I don't even know if it's a particularly widespread myth.

I also have some thoughts about why modern viewers might mistake Victorian photos of living subjects for post-mortems.

Arrgh. I'm not even a proper historian, just a geek with a morbid turn of mind.


* As opposed to post-mortem photos where the subject is (a) clearly dead, usually in his/her coffin, or (b) retouched to look alive, but still in a supine position - usually with the aim of portraying the deceased as peacefully asleep.

** Short version - years ago I read The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, and recall a passage about why hospital staff hate hate hate it when a patient dies in a chair and doesn't get discovered until rigor mortis has set in...