Electric Spanking Chairs, 1898
Apparently as the 19th century gave way to the 20th, there was a move to automate the spanking discipline at reform schools across the nation. This from the New York Times of February 14, 1898:
SPANKING BY ELECTRICITY
Kansas Has Invented a Method Which Colorado May Adopt
Chicago, Ill., Feb. 13 — Warden C.P. Hoyt of Denver has designed a spanking chair for use in the Industrial School for Girls. It consists of a seatless chair on which the girls are placed. It is high enough from the ground to allow four paddles to be operated by electric wires. Straps hold the victim’s wrists to the arm of the chair.
At the Girl’s Industrial School of Kansas, situated at Beloit, they have what is called a spanking chair. Bad girls are strapped in the chair, an attendant presses a button, and the chair does the rest. The Kansas authorities will be asked in a few days to explain this system, and if it is satisfactory to the local authorities a spanking chair will be purchased for the Colorado institution.
Found via Natty’s Spanking Blog.
Just when you think you’Ve seen it all….
That’s brilliant and must be reconstructed immediately. The seatless feature would be enormously fun to watch since the girls would doubtlessly try to sit properly and maintain some composure…
[…] to the New York Times, electric spanking chairs with bondage wrist restraints were in use at reform schools for girls in Colorado and Kansas … in […]
I you read C. P. Hoyt: “The Punishment of Prisoners” in: Proceedings of the annual Congress of the National Prison Association of the United States (1900) you’ll see that the alleged “spanking chair” is a hoax. The article makes an interesting read nonetheless as it details how girls were actually spanked in several schools back then.
Maybe there weren’t spanking chairs in the US at the turn of the twentieth century, but they weren’t entirely made up, either. In “Discipline and Punish,” Foucault includes several reproductions of advertisements for various spanking devices.
I’ve always wondered, though, why schools and institutions would shell out for spanking machines. Was spanking students really that tiring? Wouldn’t there probably have been a pervert or two on the staff willing to volunteer for the job?\
And why did the machine you described need FOUR paddles. Very strange…
Such a machine would certainly make a wonderful gift idea for that special kinkster…..