Harry Houdini performing the suspended straitjacket escape at the Police Field Day Games in Brooklyn, New York, on Aug( The New York Times, August 29, 1920)
It was published in The New York Times on August 29, 1920, with the caption, “HARRY HOUDINI, HANDCUFF KING, Freeing Himself from a Straight-jacket While Suspended in the Air at the Police Field Day Games at the Gravesend Race Track.” Instead, here’s a scarce photo of the man, upside down as he often was (hence the danger of plummeting), and a little background info to follow.
I suspect that today at least some Houdini and history bloggers will expound on the myths, realities, and ironies of the pioneering showman’s demise, so I won’t offer you more of that. And of all the things that could have killed a daredevil like him-drowning, suffocation, strangulation, plummeting-it was peritonitis that ultimately did him in. That’s exactly what Harry Houdini did 91 years ago today: October 31, 1926, 1:26 p.m., age 52. The image illustrated, taken in 1915 while Houdini is being strapped into a straitjacket, bears striking identifiable marks which are consistent with those on the jacket being offered.There’s no enviable day to die, but if you’re a magician, and you have to cash in your chips, anyway, it might as well be on Halloween. A number of photographs, of his well-documented escapes, show Houdini wearing a similar jacket to the one offered in this lot. It has since remained in the same family having been passed down by generation. When performing this stunt in New York while hanging from a crane used to build the New York Subway, Houdini escaped the straitjacket in two minutes 37 seconds.Īccording to the vendor of this well-worn straitjacket, it was gifted by Houdini's brother, Theo, to a mutual friend following his untimely death.
It has been reported that thousands of people would teem the streets to get a glimpse of the death defying exhibitionist. Ever savvy and publicity hungry Houdini's choice of location for these and similar stunts would be public spaces in areas which were sure to draw in huge crowds to watch in anticipation and disbelief. Hanging from a crane meters in the air, Houdini would seem to do the impossible and escape the grips of a regimented straitjacket while dangling upside down. Harry Houdini, renowned magician and escapologist became famous for his daredevil feats including the infamous Suspended Straitjacket Escape.
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