Philadelphia Busybodies
This 3-mirror device called a “busybody” allows residents to see who’s at their door without being seen. (Photo by Jim Murphy, author of “Real Philly History, Real Fast.”)
On the west side of Third Street, just north of Pine Street in Philadelphia’s Society Hill section, you’ll see these small mirrors known as Busybodies.
They allow interested (aka “nosy”) people to see who’s at their door and what’s going on nearby. They used to be very popular in Philadelphia. Today, you have to hunt to find them.
Some believe Ben Franklin invented busybodies, but that claim appears to be untrue. Franklin did write articles as The Busy Body in the American Weekly Mercury. And he may have seen the devices in Paris.
But Bob Skiba, a former president of the Association of Philadelphia Tour Guides says in a Facebook Post dated Sept. 25, 2018, that no ads for the devices appeared in Philadelphia newspapers until 1881. Franklin died in 1790.
The official Gazette of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office puts the first use of “The Ben Franklin Busybody” trademark as 1999.
The Frederick News-Post of Frederick, MD on Jan. 13, 2019, tells a 1901 story in which the Atlantic Monthly described this unusual scene in Philadelphia: “Fifty thousand women spending their afternoons in fifty thousand rocking chairs, observing the callers at their neighbors’ doors, the passers-by on the sidewalk, and even happenings in their neighbors’ second stories…"
Skiba included an 1881 ad from the Philadelphia Inquirer that said you could see “any one (sic) “on the front doorstep without raising the window or Being SEEN.”
The ad also promised “endless pleasure” and said: “For the sick chamber, nothing better could suit the invalid.”
Busybodies are scarce today. So maybe we’re less nosy. Or possibly we’re using social media to satisfy our curiosity
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