Harry Houdini

Manacles, and Handcuffs, and Locks, Oh My!

Mathew Horsma

Most people believe that to get out of a pair of handcuffs, it would be difficult, but for Harry Houdini, that is not the case. Harry Houdini has gotten out of all of the handcuffs he challenged, except for one.

Sergeant Waldron from the Chicago police department challenged Harry Houdini with a doctored handcuff. Sergeant Waldron stuck a piece of lead into the keyhole of the cuffs to jam it, preventing it from ever opening. Harry had to get the cuffs sawed to get them off. Harry learned afterward to check the handcuffs before putting them on to make sure they are in working order.

Harry Houdini had a way to make sure that he would always be able to take off any handcuffs he put on. He put all of his lock picking tools inside his “ghost house”. Harry’s ghost house was a four sided cabinet. A ghost house is a storage area that a magician would be able to go inside and put in and take out tools that they would need for their magic acts.

Harry Houdini achieved the titles, “King of Handcuffs”, and “Master of Manacles”.

Harry Houdini got these titles from being able to unlock and escape from so many handcuffs.

Harry Houdini’s real name was Ehrich Weiss, but he changed his first name to Harry because the Americanized version of Ehrich was Harry. Harry changed his last name to Houdini because the man that inspired him to do magic was a man named Robert Houdin. Robert Houdin was French, and a friend of Harry told him that if he added an “I” at the end of Houdin, it would mean “like Houdin” in French. Robert Houdin got his last name when he hyphenated his name to match his wife’s name, Josephe Cecile

Houdin.
Harry Houdini had the ability to look at locks and know what key would unlock it. Harry got this ability because he was introduced to locks at a young age. Harry’s mother locked a pie in the pantry, and Harry wanted the pie so he pick locked the door and took the pie. Harry has been fascinated with locks ever since.
The bane for all magicians is not having enough fans at your acts. Harry Houdini though found a way to ensure that he would have enough people at his shows. For each town that Harry Houdini would visit, Harry would go to the police and challenge them. Harry would challenge the locks of their jail cells, to prove that they could not lock him up.
When Harry was brought to the cells, he would be stripped of everything and locked in the cell. The police even had doctors there to make sure that Harry did not hide anything. Harry would get out of the jail cells, and then the reporters that were there would talk about it in the newspapers, attracting the attention of people that had enough free time to go watch one of his shows.
Harry Houdini acquired many talents on his trip to being famous. Harry learned to hide his lock picks in his thick, curly hair whenever he challenged the police cells. Harry also learned how to eat his picks and tools and regurgitate them for later use in his acts. Harry Houdini was definitely a man of many talents.