Thanks Roberta: Yes, I have quite a bit of contemporary ads, catalogs, journal articles, and textbooks; thank you Google books. I am preparing a proposal to examine and record some actual belts in a museum collection. As far as I know these artifacts have not been identified in any archaeological collection and given the apparent numbers that were sold I have concluded that they are probably being collected but miss-identified. They are so far outside of our collective memory and so delicate that does not seem farfetched to think that the fragments at least are being missed. I wanted to make sure that none had been identified before I said so; after all just because I failed to find any mention does not mean that no one has. So I thought I would ask HSTARCH, I know a lot of people lurk here even when they don't post very much. I thought I would put that collective inquiry to work.
	Originally I thought that the category of the material culture of sexual hygiene would be limited to contraception and the treatment of venereal disease, but I was very wrong. I hope to have my research complete by the end of the year, if you are interested I will post something on HSTARCH and I will share the results. I have been the lucky recipient of some great research from HSTARCH and I would be glad to pass it on.  

-----Original Message-----
From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of [log in to unmask]
Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2013 8:16 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: electric power belts

You may already know of this reference, but I have found The Great  Patent Medicine Era by Adelaide Hechtlinger  (Galahad Books, New York,  1970)  to be both useful and entertaining.  Electric belts are  illustrated on pages 168-173.
 
Roberta S. Greenwood, RPA