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Photo: In 1939 There Were Blizzard Cones To Protect Your Face From The Cold
By
Jen Carlson
Published Dec 14, 2013
Modified Dec 14, 2013
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By
Jen Carlson
Published Dec 14, 2013
Modified Dec 14, 2013
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If Kickstarter was around in the early 1900s you would have seen things a little more innovative than the Grilled Cheezus, a birthday party, or a Spike Lee movie getting funded. And you would have seen a lot of things re-invented for the sole purpose of being able to utilize them while in bed (the bed piano and bed glasses, for example)—we were always lazy! But we were also always looking for a new way to battle the winter elements, and perhaps the most interesting example is the Blizzard Cone from 1939. Why wear a warming cloth mask when you can wear a plastic beak?
The cone was designed "to protect the wearer from storms and blizzards," and presumably an added benefit is that your makeup didn't get messed up and people could still see your face? There's precious little information out there regarding this piece of ingenuity, which never quite took off. If it did, we'd need some serious Blizzard Cone etiquette guidelines out there on the crowded sidewalks—umbrellas are contentious enough.
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1930s
1939
blizzard mask
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history
inventions
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snow cone mask
Jen Carlson
Jen Carlson is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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