Ah, Wisconsin. The Badger State. The Land of Cheeseheads. And at least at the dawn of the 20th century, the epicenter of the female orgasm.

During the Second Industrial Revolution, the town of Racine, Wisconsin quickly established itself as a serious manufacturing hub. Workers there were laying the blueprint for a flourishing automobile industry while building game-changing electrical products like blenders and blow dryers.

But powering these newfangled gadgets required electrical motors, and inventors soon realized these motors could be used for more than just cleaning.

In 1904, Frederick Osius — who went on to invent the first portable vacuum cleaner — founded the United States Standard Electric Company, later renamed the Arnold Electrical Company. A glowing online bio of Osius describes him as a retail genius, but one of his lesser-known creations is a pretty terrifying-looking massage vibrator, archived online by the National Museum of American History.

The Arnold Massage Vibrator is seemingly one of the company’s first inventions, and was originally released in 1909. Advertisements didn’t exactly scream “hold this between your legs for a really great time,” but the huge, thrumming device was marketed toward aching, overworked housewives. The taglines are hysterical in retrospect, like the 1913 ad declaring: “The Arnold Massage Vibrator… Keeps Women Healthy and the Family Well.”

It sure does!

According to local historians, in the early 1900s, Racine was basically the “vibrator capital of the world,” with at least seven companies known to manufacture different variations of these bulky, heavy-duty massage vibrators, like Hamilton Beach’s Try-New-Life model, which looks like it could tear a clit to shreds.

All of this comes (cums?) with a serious dose of irony given that, at the time, it wasn’t uncommon for horny or promiscuous women to be institutionalized or locked away for their sins, especially any woman thought to be a sex worker. The ideal American woman was housewife — and therefore, a beacon of purity and innocence thought to only want to fuck her husband if the sex could result in offpring.

But I guess what she did in private was her business provided it stayed in private. Besides, using these early vibrators was an exercise in self-care meant to make her a better wife and mother, as vibrator ads throughout the early 20th century hilariously promised a flawless — probably flushed, dewy, post-orgasmic — complexion, with the massagers described as “little home doctors” guaranteed to bring “health and vitality” to all who used them. In fact, a 1920 ad for the Polar Cub vibrator described it as an “indispensable requisite of every woman’s dressing table.”

And to think, none of this would have been possible without Racine, Wisconsin.