How a 1937 hoax captured the imagination with giant grasshoppers

In 1937, a pre-photoshop hoax was spread by a man who decided to superimpose an image of a grasshopper into a guy's hand in a photograph. The photo makes it look like the guy has just shot and killed the mega grasshopper, and at the time, some folks believed it was real.

This image became a popular postcard in years to follow. While the average grasshopper is an inch or two long, the one in the photograph is a few feet long. I'm quite thankful there are no real grasshoppers this size, but I love this fun image and the lore behind it. It's impressive that the editing was done by hand instead of digitally; this image marks a significant milestone in the history of photo editing.

Here's the backstory of how the image came into existence, from The Kansas Historical Society:

When a swarm of grasshoppers descended on Garden City in 1935, Frank D. "Pop" Conard had a vision. The photographer made a montage of giant insects with humans and sold the postcards like "hotcakes." "The idea," Conard said, "came to me after a flight of grasshoppers swarmed into Garden City attracted by the lights, and it was impossible to fill an automobile gasoline tank at filling stations that night. I went home to sleep, but awoke at 3:00 a.m. and all I could think about was grasshoppers. By morning I had the idea of having fun with the grasshoppers, and took my pictures and superimposed the hoppers with humans. I didn't do it for adverse impressions of Kansas, but as an exaggerated joke." A master retoucher, Conard continued to print "hopper whoppers" until his retirement in 1963. Grasshoppers were enlarged to battle a man, fit on the bed of a pickup, and hold up a train.

The picture postcard presented the possibility to inventive photographers to extend the traditional tall-tale to the photographic plate, and what is more, to devise entirely new forms that were possible only through photography. It brought into being visual effects that tall-tale tellers through the centuries had seen only in their fertile imaginations.

"They say pictures don't lie," explained Conard, "but from the sale of these postcards-the fastest selling novelty cards on the market it seems that Kansas people like a little funny, untruth."