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Industrial accidents of yesteryear

Cory Doctorow at 6:05 pm Thu, Jul 26, 2012

Kindle

This 1961 ad for Summitville Tiles, Inc. features an all-too-familiar lab scene that we were only able to put behind us for good when we stopped letting Salvador Dali cook his meth in Boing Boing Labs.

Midcentury Modern and a half-naked lab assistant

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: ads • gender • illustration • Old school • Science

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jarmstrong

No, no, not meth. Ol’ Dr. Tripps was just cooking up a batch of Hoffman’s Brand Acid. And while those floors may have resisted, Ms. Yellow Sunshine dove right in!
- Preston Sturges
  
  I think he was cooking up a batch of mustache wax.
- Warren_Terra
  
  Why is everyone in this thread assuming he’s a professor or a Dr. and she’s an assistant or a Ms.?
  
  I mean, sure, she’s a sexist stereotype. But maybe she’ a smart, educated sexist stereotype.
  - jarmstrong
    
    Brava, Warren. Serves me right for sharing a narrative that immediately popped into my dome upon seeing this post of an ad from 1961. I am sure the creative had something completely different in mind.
    
    But, why would people assume that a character to whom I refer as a “Ms.” is neither smart nor educated? And why would people equate the honorific “Ms.” with being an assistant?
    
    Anyhoo, I’m going to look for some Summitville floor bricks!
    - Warren_Terra
      
      Well, if she’s a Ms. rather than a Dr. she is less educated (with the caveat that in the era of this ad it was not uncommon for formal educational attainment opportunities and credentials to be denied to very accomplished woman). Whether a Ph.D. candidate (i.e. the highest level of education at which she’d remain a “Ms.” rather than a “Dr.” or a “Prof.”) should be referred to as an “assistant” is a harder question, but there is a theme throughout the comments that assumes she’s not present by virtue of her education or intelligence.
Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Hey, Tony Stark’s parents. That explains everything.
chris revis

Whoops, I did that on purpose.
Just ignore the non existent skin burns …
I just invented acid that only burns clothes.
- fuzzyfuzzyfungus
  
  Everybody knows that the same narrative causality that renders attractive blondes incapable of being competent provides them with absolute immunity to all inaesthetic accidents. They do suffer from a nontrival risk of tragic-death-to-drive-the-backstory-of-a-real-person syndrome; but are otherwise practically indestructible….
  - snowmentality
    
    I don’t know. She does seem to be missing a toe on her right foot.
    - Warren_Terra
      
      Given that she’s got five (oddly positioned) toes showing, this is implausible.
- Preston Sturges
  
  The professor was known for his caustic retorts.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    That’s a lye!
    - Warren_Terra
      
      A base calumny.
    - Preston Sturges
      
      See, that’s a glass retort attached to the stand
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retort
- Jellodyne
  
  No skin burns, she’s built like a brick house.
Boundegar

If that’s Dali then why isn’t she made out of ants?
- noah django
  
  she’s no Gala
sockdoll

That composition reminds me of art class lessons on directing the viewer’s eye.
Preston Sturges

Well that’s a cunning stunt.
Preston Sturges

The professors experiments in lab bench levitation had unforseen consequences.
Preston Sturges

Judging by the chalkboard behind him, he may have made some potassium permangenate, hence the blast.
hacky

What reaction might be on the chalkboard?
- Gary61
  
  It says “No Ho No” – but it was too little, too late, the pathogen got released.
ImmutableMichael

You stopped Salvador Dali cooking meth?

This is political correctness gone mad!
Cardinal Biggles

Not sure what the gas pipe connections for the bunsen burners are doing, either, as they appear to connect to the clamps on the retort stand. Still, I guess if he can have a floating lab bench, he can materialize gas out of nowhere. Maybe it was all a case of ‘come into the lab, and see what’s on the slab …’, and then it all went wrong.
- Warren_Terra
  
  Yup: the Bunsen burners are getting their supply from the retort stand. The color of the flame in the bunsen burner is wrong.
  
  More importantly, there are no valves on the retort stand to control the gas flow, and one of two Bunsen burners is lit – indicating that gas is flowing, and is escaping from the other Bunsen burner. I think this image was captured moments before the explosion and fire that killed the mustachioed fellow and presumably destroyed the lady’s clothes, leaving her person and the wonderful floor intact.
Mitch_M

I give up. Where is the celery?
- morcheeba
  
  <3
- Preston Sturges
  
  Mark: I swear, all that’s true, and sometimes I even dig it with a Dr. Brown’s Cream Soda . . . or a Cel-Ray! But . . . we are not groupies! No matter what you think . . .
  Howard: No, I never . . .
  Mark: We are not groupies …
  - Warren_Terra
    
    Geez, that’s an obscure Zappa reference. Or is it to something else?
- jellyfishattack
  
  Art Frahm!
  
  There’s a great collection of his work depicting celery carrying women and their fallen panties and leering men at: http://www.lileks.com/institute/frahm/art1.html
mexicomaine

Good heavens Miss Sakimoto – you’re beautiful!!
- Preston Sturges
  
  Reminds me of Stella Stevens in “The Nutty Professor” where Jerry Lewis plays a chemistry professor.
Preston Sturges

“Hold still my dear, and this mercury fulminate will have those knickers off in a jiff.”
Frank Diekman

The scene right after he says, “I’m the one who knocks.”
malindrome

Science: It’s a girl thing.
Eark_the_Bunny

We’re going to need another Timmy!
http://www.facebook.com/people/Katrina-van-Malksvig/100000571611598 Katrina van Malksvig

I had occasion to visit may old-fashioned medical labs (the kind that’s attached to a larger hospital) in the 1980s - and there is a lot of truth in the “half naked lab assistant” scenario…. Full of newly-qualified female lab chemists (un)dressed to the nines in order to snatch themselves a rich doctor!
Warren_Terra

It’s been a long time since I was in a Chem lab … but surely the spout on a retort isn’t supposed to be pointed straight down like that.
politician

or non-dairy creamer, perhaps:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWcR5nv1N8I
cstatman

am I the first one to notice she looks like Xeni?
- benher
  
  I don’t know, but *I* will be the first one to post the words “breaking bad” haha!
Baldhead

noticed her underwear is apparently also acid- proof. IMportant safetly tip folks! acid proof panties in the lab!
zotlerg

“You fool, now you’ve glued some of my toes and fingers together! I never should have hired that blundering idiot of a man!”