In honor of the First Friday tour scheduled this January which focuses on wellness, we are taking a closer look at the electric bath cabinet and needle shower. The Coe’s may have wanted their home at Planting Fields to emulate the Elizabethan era, but they were not opposed to incorporating modern innovations into their respective bathrooms.
In May of 1920 W.R. Coe purchased a Burdick radio vitant electric bath cabinet from the Burdick Cabinet Company for $495.00 ($7,581 in 2024). Burdick’s cabinets were found in hospitals and men’s health clubs, and they were believed to heal many ailments through the power of infrared light. Frederick Frazier Burdick founded his company in 1913 in Wisconsin and later moved to the land of sunshine—California. He was likely influenced by the work of Dr. John Harvey Kellogg of the famed Battle Creek Sanitarium.
The Professional Model purchased by W.R. Coe. Note that W.R. requested that the control buttons be placed on the inside of the cabinet. Courtesy of a 1931 Burdic Light Therapy catalog, Internet Archive.
Kellogg is credited with designing the first incandescent bulb light cabinet in 1891 (displayed at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893). He drew inspiration from Danish scientist Niels Ryberg Finsen who won the 1903 Nobel prize in physiology for his research on the healing effects of phototherapy, also known as light therapy. Today, infrared saunas (minus the light bulbs) are found in many spas.
An 1893 needle shower similar to Mai’s. Courtesy of New York Public Library Digital Collections.
Mai Coe’s dressing room featured a “needle shower encased in glass” as described in a 1921 issue of Home & Gardens. Like the electric bath cabinets, they were typically only found in spas or homes of the wealthy. Needle showers were the latest form of technology during the turn of the 20th century—they got their name from the small jets, or needle sized openings, that propelled water to the body. This form of hydrotherapy was believed to increase circulation and overall wellbeing. Mai’s shower did not have the “rib cage” design commonly associated with needle showers, but it did have two “liver sprays” which directed water to the abdomen.
Mai Coe’s dressing room, photographed by Mattie Edwards Hewitt, 1921.
Header Image: W.R. Coe’s bathroom, photographed by Mattie Edwards Hewitt, 1921.
From Marie Penny, Michael D. Coe Archivist