Do you wish to separate the jolly good fellows from the dour sour pusses from those who seek to ASCEND TO THEIR SIDE DEGREES―but you suffer from lack of imagination when it comes to constructing elaborate hazing rituals and DEVICES? Does fake vomit, joy buzzers and a party pack of fake moustaches only produce yawns, rather than giggles, among your once-merry members? Well, look no further than Catalog no. 439: Burlesque and Side degree Specialties: Paraphernalia and Costumes, in which the manufacturers De Moulin Bros. & Co. from Greenville, Ill. feature the finest electro-dropo benches, goat-shaped tricycles, electric branding irons (and much much more)! Not only does this 1930 catalog, reproduced with marvelous 21st century machinery, provide tightly rendered pen-and-ink period illustrations and detailed product descriptions, it also has helpful how-tos and scripts to aid in the pulling of these pranks on initiates!

"This stuff is more than just fancy pranks. It's Americana. Never has nonsense been taken so seriously...This book is a fascinating, appetite- whetting glimpse for the, if you'll pardon the expression, uninitiated." -David Copperfield, from the foreword At the beginning of the twentieth century, 40 percent of American men belonged to a lodge, and they were hazing their newbies with cigar- smoking camels, spankers, and even fake guillotines. Nearly all their prank devices came from the same place: catalogs published by the DeMoulin Brothers Company from 1896 to 1930. Julia Suits discovered one of these all-but-forgotten catalogs at a flea market. Its pages were full of bizarre hazing props: old-fashioned telephones that squirted water, bucking goats attached to tricycles, Victorian- looking furniture that sent electric shocks. These prank machines are the relics of mischief and daredevilry, produced for the country's original fraternity- hazing culture, and created by America's original high-tech geeks of the electric age. The Extraordinary Catalog of Peculiar Inventions offers a peek into twentieth-century American culture that most people have never seen. At its core are hundreds of the most inventive DeMoulin prank machines, complete with their original, quirky descriptions and eccentric line art. Alongside the catalog pages are newspaper clippings, lodge trivia, quotes, and stories that show the true side of America's original hazing culture.

Collected from Chippewa Indians in northern Minnesota.

First multi-year cumulation covers six years: 1965-70.

February issue includes Appendix entitled Directory of United States Government periodicals and subscription publications; September issue includes List of depository libraries; June and December issues include semiannual index