Wow. Well, my What the Doctor ordered post just, very quickly, became the most viewed post on my site ever. It’s all thanks to Stephen McGann retweeting it – he does play a smoking doctor on Call the Midwife, after all, and therefore the doctor-promoted cigarette advert was rather appropriate.
(This was extra brilliant because I’m such a big McGann fan in general.)
So, inspired by the last post, here’s a bit more smoking doctor stuff from the archives.
Of course, it took a while for the generally anti-smoking sentiment to catch on, especially with doctors. Here’s an article from 1922 where a doctor blames “cheap cigarettes” for a woman’s death, on account of the “large amount of paper used in their manufacture”, not the tobacco or anything. The doctor concluded “It was a great pity that women did not take to smoking pipes.” The Western Gazette, 1922
But it wasn’t all pro-tobacco. “Is the tolerance of the habit shown by many doctors not owing in some measure to their own indulgence in the habit?” asked the Glasgow Herald in 1924. The Motherwell Times, 1924
And even in 1888, this “smokers are stupid” joke was printed: The Cheltenham Chronicle, 1888
And apropos of not much apart from the general cigarette atmos, here’s an advert for the smokers in adversity (advertsity?). It was 1941 and not only was the Blitz happening around you, you had to get by with less tobacco than usual. Here’s an advert being all keep calm and carry on about having to do with 20% less tobacco than before, and urging smokers to stick to their pre-war levels. So smoking must have increased considerably during the war. Understandably. Portsmouth Evening News, 1941
Anyway.
The volume of hits for the Kensitas cigarette advert inspired me to look a bit deeper into the advertising campaign that the brand ran in 1937. My original advert was from The Mirror, overseas edition, and was based on Kensitas’ statistic that 84% of London doctors who smoked preferred a mild cigarette. That is, as opposed to strong cigarettes, not to no cigarettes at all. It seems like a no brainer to be honest, but in 1937 this was obviously a bigger deal.
I had a nose around the British Newspaper Archive for some more of their adverts and found that there had been a quite extensive campaign. There’s a lot of images with stats for different places and there’s also quite an impressive number of stars of stage and screen lending their faces for the cause, not just Stanley Lupino as in my orignal ad.
I first found this one, in The Lancashire Daily Post. The singer and dancer Miss Binnie Hale is the face of this one, stating that 81% of Preston doctors (who smoked anyway) preferred mild cigarettes. The Lancashire Daily Post, 1937
And next I saw this one, also with Binnie Hale, in The Yorkshire Daily Post. Here, um, 81% of Leeds doctors prefer a mild cigarette: The Yorkshire Daily Post, 1937
Now, I’m starting to smell 81% of a rat. Bit of a coincidence, innit?
But no, it turns out that it wasn’t 81% of doctors everywhere. It was, ooh, 81½% in Yorkshire as a whole, as George Robey says: The Lancashire Daily Post, 1937
It was 88% in Liverpool, Miss Yvonne Arnaud tells us (Liverpool winning the most sensible doctors in the country competition, there. In a way): Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, 1937
77% of Angus doctors says Jeanne de Casalis: Dundee Courier, 1937
I’m wondering if someone at Kensitas made a bit of a mix up with some of these ads now, the place names start to mismatch with the local newspapers.
I’m starting to get all a tizzy with the figures already – but now it gets more specific. Mere integers are not enough to express the data at this point.
85¾% of Durham Doctors: Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette, 1937
(I hope you’re not getting bored of all this)
83½% Edinburgh doctors says Joseph Hislop: Lancashire Daily Post, 1937(But I’ve become transfixed in the face of all these meaningless stats)
86¼% of Manchester doctors says Harry Roy: Yorkshire Evening Post, 1937
It’s 75 and a third% of Belfast doctors says Will Hay (ooh, I’ve heard of him) (Oh, and bad show, Belfast, you have the hardest smoking doctors): The Portsmouth Evening News, 1937
84¾% of Lancashire doctors says the delightful June: Northern Daily Mail, 1937
Gearing up for the overall figures now. Getting exciting.
For the whole of England, it’s 84% announces Dame Sybil Thorndike (there’s some class): The Lancashire Daily Post, 1937
For Scotland – 80¾%. according to John Loder: Northern Daily Mail, 1937
And….drum roll…..for the entirety of Britain….it’s 83½%, as announced next to Gordon Harker: Sunderland Echo and Shipping Gazette, 1937
Well, there wasn’t much point to all that. I think we have conclusively proved nothing. Except that quite a lot of doctors smoked in 1937.
OK, what? A peculiar and devastatingly under-explained little article from The Mirror, 1937.
The Mirror, 1937
This article reminded me of Tod Browning’s Freaks, the controversial 1932 cult horror film, which depicted the dying days of the freakshow. On account of its cast being real sideshow performers and its shocking plot, it was banned in the UK for 30 years. My favourite member of the cast is the “Half Woman-Half Man” played by the very cool Josephine Joseph, who claimed to be exactly split down the middle, gender-wise. The split-in-two depiction of a hermaphrodite was one of more popular types of sideshow “freak”, and was apparently mostly performed by males, who would exercise one half of their body and leave the other “female” side to go flabby and “moob up”. After ensuring you had two different hairstyles on either side of your head, you were away.
Josephine Joseph in Freaks, 1932
Now, this is where I get a bit excited. While writing this post I was suddenly overcome with curiosity about Josephine Joseph’s life. But….well, there’s hardly anything online at all. All I really found was that on Wikipedia, it’s claimed that she/he was 19 in Freaks, born in Austria, and was 5’6. That’s it! No one seems to know anything more – her/his real name, death or even if she/he were really a man or woman. Although some online commenters are pretty sure that J.J. was a man, in line with the tradition of such performers.
Me, I’m 100% convinced she’s a woman, and a pretty foxy one at that. I’m also rather sceptical of the claim to be 19 years old in Freaks. She looks a fair bit older than that to my eyes. And that was before I dug up something quite interesting in the British Newspaper Archive. Even more excitingly, it’s local to my part of the country too, the North West of the UK.
Now, the British Newspaper Archive doesn’t show up on Google searches as it’s a subscription service. And seeing as I’m newly armed with a month’s unlimited browsing, I decided to have a peek.
I found a rather intriguing article about a “Half Woman-Half Man” sideshow act called Josephine Joseph, who was the defendant in what sounds like a quite sensational, yet obscure, case in 1930. J.J. and her husband George Waas were an American couple who had been running a show at a “Coney Island” attraction in Blackpool. Their poster read:
“Josephine Joseph. Half Woman. Half Man. The most sensation freak of nature. Brother and sister in one body.”
J.J.’s name is given officially as Josephine Waas in the newspaper articles. They appeared before Blackpool Magistrates on August 22nd, 1930, charged with false pretences and conspiracy in order to “protect the gullible public” who paid to see their show. Brilliantly, the headline wearily calls this “Another Half Man-Half Woman Case”. You can’t move for them.
Before I get into the nitty gritty of that case, just for fun, let’s have a quick detour around the world of August 22nd 1930, as seen by the Lancashire Evening Post. It was in this issue that Princess Margaret’s birth was announced. It also reported on the birthday of Mrs Tackley, a 96-year-old woman who thought modern women’s dresses that showed their knees were “disgusting” and that there was “too much electricity about.”
Lancashire Daily Post, August 22nd, 1930
There was the death of William Henry Townsend, the would-be assassin of Victorian Prime Minister Gladstone – who couldn’t go through with it because Gladstone smiled at him. He was still banged up in Broadmoor for the rest of his life though.
Lancashire Daily Post, August 22nd, 1930
Vimto is marketed as an energy drink for boxers:
Lancashire Daily Post, August 22nd, 1930
And cottage cheese is advertised as a way to keep policemen “nobby”:
Lancashire Daily Post, August 22nd, 1930
Right, so back to Josephine Joseph. I think I know why this is piece of information has been left uncovered so far. The story was covered in two, local, newspapers – The Lancashire Daily Post and The Yorkshire Post – and it wasn’t a big trial that might have attracted national interest. Although the British Newspaper Archive is largely local newspapers so I’m not sure what national coverage this got, if any. George and Josephine complain about being summonsed only the day before and having no time to prepare a defence. They also apparently left the country immediately afterwards. Plus, J.J.’s big claim to fame in the movies was scuppered recognition-wise as Freaks was banned for so long.
Here’s the full article in the Lancashire Daily Post, and also a shorter version from the Yorkshire Post:
Lancashire Daily Post, 22nd August 1930
Yorkshire Post, 23rd August 1930
And here’s some close ups of the first article so it’s easier to read (although a bit awkward because of the columns):
Lancashire Daily Post, 22nd August 1930
Lancashire Daily Post, 22nd August 1930
Lancashire Daily Post, 22nd August 1930
Lancashire Daily Post, 22nd August 1930
It sounds quite riotous. They refuse to submit Josephine to a court doctor’s examination to prove hermaphroditism, but offer to provide X-rays to the court instead, given an adjournment. The adjournment was refused and the X-rays rejected as evidence without even being seen. A shame; I would have loved these, possibly doctored, items to still be available somewhere.
“Josephine Joseph” sounds a lot like a pure stage name, and there’s no photographs attached to the articles. But what makes me absolutely sure this is the same woman in Freaks are the descriptions of her in court. She is said to be a man on the right side, and a woman on the left, with her right arm longer than her left. Her eyebrows were different on either side. The Yorkshire Post article describes her stage costume as a bare right leg with a sandal, and a black-stockinged left leg with a woman’s shoe. Finally, her hair was brushed from the right side to the left, giving the impression of short hair on the right hand side. Now look at this picture of J.J. as she appears in Freaks two years later. Every point is the same:
Josephine Joseph in Freaks, 1932
Ultimately both pleaded guilty, the conspiracy charge was dropped and the show was ordered to be stopped immediately. Interestingly, only George was fined £25, while Josephine was discharged despite also pleading guilty. That seems quite unusual, but maybe she cast a bit of a spell on the courtroom. She sounds like a cool customer – it’s noted that she was smiling broadly when the verdict discharging her was announced, to some surprised murmuring in court. And there’s this exchange with Superintendent Hannan as he announced what he thought of Josephine’s physical attributes:
Superintendent: “I have no idea what the medical testimony may be, but I do say this, that the woman so far as I know does show to the public certain muscles on one side of her body which are more developed than those on the other side. She also has a male voice and a female voice. She may be without breast on one side, but this does not make her half man and half woman, as it can be brought about by operation or by physical exercises. Muscles can be developed on one side of the body and not on the other.
Turning to the woman defendant, the Superintendent remarked, “I see she is smiling.”
The Woman, “Can you stretch bones, Superintendent?”
There was laughter in the court and the Superintendent did not answer the question.
In the end, rather than submit to trial by jury in Preston, George Waas states:
“I want to plead guilty and get it over with. You are not going to crucify me entirely, are you? We both plead guilty.”
Asked if he anything to say to the magistrates, Waas replied, “I am sorry. I will give up this show and leave the country.”
As a postscript, I might have uncovered a bit more information on her life, but it’s not conclusive. Searching ancestry sites for George and Josephine Waas comes up with nothing that seems to be of a relevant time period for a Josephine. But there’s something very promising for George, and, after all, Josephine was probably a convenient stage name anyway. These are the details from the 1930 US Census. A George Waas was married to Betty Waas, and they later ended up in Los Angeles. Betty Waas was born in 1897 in Romania, and if this is our Josephine, that would make her 35 in 1932, a more realistic age for the performer in Freaks, in my opinion.
So there it is. A little light hopefully shed on a largely unknown life. I believe that Josephine Joseph definitely was a woman – or possibly of intersex gender, but not a man anyway, if she was indeed married to a man. And quite possibly she was really called Betty Waas, Romanian, and aged 16 years older than Wikipedia thinks. And this is where I came in – the title of the unrelated little article at the start of this post now seems to fit my findings pretty well, in the end.
I’m off to fiddle with Wikipedia and think about what a great film this could make. I can’t imagine anyone but Reece Shearsmith as the lead role. Wouldn’t he be amazing in it?
And, lastly, here’s Josephine herself, as she is in Freaks. Well, any excuse to post this – always and forever one of my favourite things on the Web, Ricardo Autobahn’s The Golden Age of Video:
Happiness (for me) is a browse through what is probably my favourite online resource – the British Newspaper Archive. It’s here.
I thought I’d mention it now because it’s a subscription-based site, and there’s a discount code valid until the end of January 2015 – enter “news01” and you get a month’s unlimited browsing for just £1.
Here’s a little article I found, local to me as it’s from The Liverpool Post in 1937 (and I am all about 1937 right now). It’s what initially seems to be a fairly modern scenario, in a way. A pupil from Rock Ferry, Birkenhead, sued his teacher for caning him, and he won his case. Then everyone remembered they were still in 1937, his teacher appealed, and she was successful in getting the conviction overturned.
You’re left in no doubt as to what general opinion might be, reading the language of the article:
“On the afternoon of January 12th, she warned him several times. When she went to cane him in the ordinary way, he turned away and she hit him with the cane three times on his pants. She did not lose her temper. The boy went back to his desk and sat down, doing his work much better afterwards.
Mr Roland Thomas, K.C., for the teacher, commented, “Teachers will go in terror of punishing children, if bruising of the ordinary kind is going to be taken as excessive.”
