The Future Then
Suspicious cures and outrageous claims in PopSci's old ads

April 1924

Just 15 minutes a day! Absolutely free! Guaranteed results! The same breathless promises have been prying open our wallets for decades, offering hope for beauty, health, popularity and eternal youth. We combed the archives for the most brazen scams from the 1920s to the 1940s. Some seem harmless, while others are downright sinister (such as Alois P. Swoboda, who even managed to swindle Woodrow Wilson, with his supposed secret to "supreme life.")

See the gallery.

4 Comments

Ah America, Land of the Free, where outright lying in advertisement is constitutionally protected...

There is no difference from the what we see on the Internet today. Same scam, different time.

If you ran any of these ads in Mississippi you would still get lots of takers. Don't blame PopSci for the missleading ads. They carry anything that someone will pay for. Need a bigger penis or a "love potion", they're all in the back pages.

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