From the Normal Offering yearbook of the State Norman School of Bridewater, Mass., 1912.  (For some unbelievably weird yearbook imagery, see our How to Hoodoo Hack a Yearbook.)

From Aesop's Fables, by V. S. Vernon Jones and illustrated by Arthur Rackham, 1912.

An inkblot personified, from an ad in The Lanthorn yearbook of Susquehanna University, 1917.  See our Inkblot Oracle at https://www.oneletterwords.com/inkblot/, as well as How to Hoodoo Hack a Yearbook.

This is one of the gloomiest candles we've ever seen, back from when children were taught how to make black holes at home.  From With the Children on Sundays, Through Eye-Gate, and Ear-Gate into the City of Child-Soul by Sylvanus Stall, 1911.

Here's a vintage Rube Goldberg machine in the wild, from St. Nicholas magazine, 1910.

Santa Claus is really the Easter Bunny, as revealed in St. Nicholas magazine, 1915.

Here's "the end" from Sequelle, 1912.

Here's a precursor to Annie Dillard's Teaching a Stone to Talk (1982), from St. Nicholas magazine (1915).  The text reads, "Is a stone alive?"

Who is the biggest?  The man, most people would say.  But the man is really the smallest, and the little girl is the biggest.  We find proof in a perspective illusion from The Book of Knowledge (1912, pictured right).

An illustration from The Mahatma and the Hare: A Dream Story by H Rider Haggard (1911).  The caption reads: "The great white road."

An illustration from The Mahatma and the Hare: A Dream Story by H Rider Haggard (1911).  The caption reads: "My! Isn't she a beauty?"

An illustration from An Amiable Charlatan by Edward Phillips Oppenheim (1916).  The caption reads: "Ladies and gentlemen, if you please!  Nothing has happened."

Here's a precursor to the signature "Be seeing you" sign in the cult television series The Prisoner.  It's from Colliers magazine, May 17, 1919.

One hundred years ago today, on July 3, 1913, Uncle Sam came out as a cross-dresser in LIFE magazine.

A precursor to the cult television series The Prisoner: Even as a baby, he would not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. (This illustration, by William Donahey, is from The Green Book magazine, 1916.)  The caption reads, "Number? Number, please?"