Antique Vibrator Museum 1869-1920

Vibrator History

Vibrators were used exclusively by doctors up until around 1900. The first of such devices was made in 1869, when American physician George Taylor patented the first steam-powered massage and vibratory apparatus. Unfortunately, their use was exclusive -- the units were costly to manufacture, difficult to move and marketed for use by spas and physicians only. In 1880 the first battery-operated vibrator was designed by British physician Joseph Mortimer Granville and manufactured by the Weiss Company. Like their present-day counterparts, these battery-operated vibes were less expensive and easier to move and manipulate than their predecessors. By 1900 more than a dozen manufacturers began producing both battery-powered vibrators and models that operated from line electricity. In the newly electrified home, women were avid consumers of electrical appliances. First electrified was the sewing machine; the fan, the tea kettle, the toaster, and the vibrator came next.

During the turn of the century, vibrators began to be marketed as home appliances and were widely advertised in household publications such as Modern Woman and Woman's Home Companion. Their ads were legendary, promoting such claims as "Relieves All Suffering. Cures Disease." Another great ad boasted, "Invented by a woman who knows a woman's needs." A woman's needs, indeed! By 1906 the American Vibrator Company of St. Louis, Missouri, was one of several advertising regulars with similarly memorable copy, suggesting to women that the "American Vibrator ... can be used by yourself in the privacy of dressing room or boudoir, and furnish every woman with the essence of perpetual youth." Throughout the 1910s and '20s these ads flourished, yet little mention of the ads or products appeared in the magazines' copy.

Mail order was the standard method of marketing vibrators between 1900 and 1920. However, in the mid-1920s vibrators began to appear in erotic films and photography, effectively driving them from "respectable" publications. Vibrator ads virtually disappeared until the modern vibrator resurfaced in the 1960s as a frankly sexual device.

"Type A", Hamilton Beach, circa 1902		detail

detail

"Barker Universal", James Barker, Inc., circa 1904		"Shelton Deluxe-Wayne Vibrator", Shelton Electric Co., circa 1906

"White Cross Electric Vibrator", Brass Version, Lindstrom Smith Co., circa 1910		detail

"Chic Electric Vibrator", Morris Struhl, Inc., circa 1910		"Sure Vibrator", circa 1915

"White Cross Electric Vibrator", Model 25, Lindstrom Smith Co., circa 1910		detail

"Type K", Hamilton Beach, circa 1920		"Star Rite Electric Vibrator", Fitzgerald Manufacturing Co., circa 1920

All photos by Violet Blue.