fraser

In 1886, Hobson Pterotype Co. published “Fraser’s Fine Finger System”, a typing method which encouraged women to type each letter with elaborately decorated rosewood sticks. This was said to protect women’s fragile hands from the rigours of manly literature. On the heels of its success, Captain Fraser introduced the “Authorship of Womanhood Seminar” a writing course he taught by correspondence for women who had mastered the FFF System. For years Fraser encouraged these gifted young women to explore plunging depths of self-revelation in autobiography. The process would begin with detailed descriptions of their anatomy and inevitably culminated in lengthy intimate unburdenings. His prompting hypothetical questions were said to “empower” the women to explicit confessions which aided in their digestion. (With Kellogian zeal Captain Fraser emphasized the importance of regularity in a typist’s daily beauty regimen.) It was eventually revealed that Captain Fraser was in fact publishing their innermost contributions in serialized pamphlets entitled “Telling Tarts of Titania” which greatly enriched him. Surviving copies of these illicit pamphlets can sometimes still be found in the walls of Fredericton’s finest Victorian homes.