By Lisa Hix — The spirits came calling in 1848. Through a series of startlingly loud knocks, a murdered peddler named Charles B. Rosna started talking to two teenage girls in their Hydesville, New York, home. Margaret and Kate Fox, who could be the inspiration for Wednesday Addams with their dark locks and solemn expressions, would ask the spirits questions out loud, and to everyone’s surprise, the spirits would answer. “This created a sensation, not because there wasn't a belief in spirits before—there...

Reformed Gambling Swindle Becomes a Punch Board of Love

By Lisa Hix — When Bay Area artist Lea Redmond, known for running the “World’s Smallest Post Service,” stumbled across Parlor Coo Coo on eBay, she knew she'd found something special. Sure enough, handheld punch-board parlor games, like Coo Coo and its companion The Fortune-Teller in Rhymes, were the icebreakers du jour at cocktail parties of the 1920s and '30s. Sold by the checkout at five-and-dimes, these palm-sized stacks of pressed cardboard had all the scandal of a slumber party: You'd push out an...